


oh, how the mighty fall

by wufflles



Series: OHTMF [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adding Tags as I Go!!, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Family-centric (Harry Potter), Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Gen, Self-Insert, canon? Who's she?, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:14:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27905785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wufflles/pseuds/wufflles
Summary: On a stormy night, a soul passes from the mortal world.Or so, people think. Passing from the mortal world to the other is actually quite the task, but from one world to another? Easy. Usually, people just don't remember it. Creating new souls in such a hassle you know?Anna can remember. She can remember the hard-cover books and the taste of magic on her tongue, but so so far away. It tastes sourer than she thought.
Relationships: Cygnus Black/Druella Rosier Black, Orion Black/Walburga Black
Series: OHTMF [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043418
Comments: 60
Kudos: 312
Collections: Foreknowledge





	1. Anna I

The wind whipped around her brutally, slicing through her would-be perfectly straight hair and knotting the strands together. Anna grit her teeth as she tightened her grip on her bag, the strap beginning to ache against her shoulder. The pinpricks of colour, the binding of her books, taunted her from within the leather carrier. She glared at them, _I’m only out here because of you_.

They didn’t answer, because they were books.

Anna resisted the urge to hiss through her teeth as she bore through the wind and rain. The weather had been miserable for the past week as summer began its slow transition to autumn. The water hit on her skin with a bite instead of the gentle irritation of summer rains, soaking through her heavy jacket.

She would have been back home, snuggled up with her elderly cat and watching the next season of Criminal Minds. In summer, Anna had brought Lilian with her on the short but necessary trips to the library. She had kept her cat within her bag when she made the quick returns every week and then stopped by the local bakery for a bun if she had the money.

But this time, her cat had taken one long look at the rain battering off the windows and very quickly levelled Anna with another that said, very clearly, _you’re kidding yourself if you think I’m going out in_ that. 

The message had been received, loud and clear, and so Anna had grimaced and left to battle the winds and rain by herself. 

Wondering if it would flood, she peered across the road looking for incoming cars. The road was a busy one and Anna could only make out the headlights of cars as they approached. It rarely ever flooded so far above sea level and even then, it was so minor it was practically a puddle. 

She stepped out onto the concrete of the road, the roar of engines rattling through the air. It smelled faintly of metal and something unknown. Anna bit her lip, trying to recall where she’d smelt it before as it grew steadily stronger. 

If it did flood, the amused part of her mind rambled on, she’d be safe. Her apartment was high up enough that only a tsunami would have any _real_ effect and well, in her location, that was an almost impossible occurrence. What was the worry, really?

Anna sniffed the air, pausing a moment. It was familiar. Too familiar. Her brows furrowed as she remembered, _it’s just like a ho-_

Bright lights shone in front of her, the screech of tires against the wet tarmac and the thud of metal against flesh and bone sent her spiralling against the concrete. 

Her fingers scraped over the harsh, sodden surface when the world came into view. It was grey in the sunlight but it had turned black with water and cloudy skies. Water seeped into her clothes. Her body seemed to thud with every heartbeat and shudder with every breath as the world faded in and out of focus.

In the distance, Anna could hear concerned shouts in her direction. _Shush_ , she hushed them, but her mouth refused to move beyond a far-away groan that seemed uncanny to her ears.

A sluggish, metallic liquid pooled around her head as her eyesight bubbled with black spots, unfocusing the world before her without care. Anna dipped her fingers into it, broken nails uneven upon the smooth surface, and came away with a dark maroon that slid down her fingertips like water. Would it taste like water too, if she tried it?

“You’ll be okay.” Said a voice, low and light at the same time, neither male nor female. “Don’t worry.”

Sirens sounded in the back of her head and she batted at them. _Go away,_ Anna spat mentally. The sirens carried on cheerfully, unaware of Anna’s blight. She wanted to hiss and spit like Lilian when she finally got tired of Anna’s irritations or was spooked by a shadow. The thought of her cat, edgy about a mere shadow, brought a laugh to her lips.

Blood spilt from her lips, bubbling down her chin and painting her lips a dull red like a cheap lipstick. 

Anna laughed until she cried. The thick fog over her consciousness, concealing the wider world to her eyes, began to ascend upon her like an avenging angel. It rose and revealed a crowd of whispering people, allowing her a thin sigh of relief. Her chest rattled like a cage of bones.

Then, with a suddenness that jolted her roughly, the fog consumed her. 

  
  


* * *

  
  
  


When Anna woke - or, perhaps, woke was a very very heavy-handed word to use. It was more after she blinked. When the world stopped spinning like a vortex, she found her arms and legs pinned together tightly. She assumed it was some sort of hospital contraption to stop her causing more harm to herself.

She opened her mouth to speak but instead of words, a light wail spilt from her mouth.

“Oh, she is the quiet one, isn’t she?” A rich voice tipped with a giggly excitement. She whimpered - _seriously, what the fuck-_ at the sound of it, something embedded within her rankling with the sound of it.

A clink of porcelain against porcelain and another, lighter voice replying. “When she wants to be. Bellatrix was quiet as a child, don’t you remember? Barely made a sound. Look at her now, running around the manor like a hooligan.”

“Perhaps it was a mistake to let Sirius befriend her.” The rich voice laughed.

“He’s besotted with her, isn’t he? Such a shame, we’re already sorting something out with the Lestranges. Good blood, that family.”

A dismissive sound from the rich voice - also a woman, Anna decided suddenly, shifting uncomfortably within the silk fabrics. “Too much of an age gap between them, I think. Perhaps if the Malfoy’s have a daughter, we could sort something out there. Isn’t Castillo pregnant again?”

A soft, mournful sound. “Three miscarriages already, poor woman. At least they have a son.”

The other woman agreed, but it was much more subdued. “Of course.”

Anna gritted her teeth as a strained warble escaped from her unwittingly. It was obvious that this wasn’t a hospital and the place where she was, well, she wasn’t quite sure. The walls were richly painted in silver with golden accents that… moved. So far, she determined she was in some sort of rectangle box that was lined with high wooden barriers. 

“Oh, she is getting worked up. I better go check on her." The lighter voiced woman said. Was that a hint of _worry?_

The soft clicks of boots against wooden floorboards as, presumably, the woman approached her cage. Anna pressed her lips together as she squirmed inside the fabric. Her muscles felt lax as she tried to break free. She couldn't remember a time where she was ever like this, even when she had broken her arm. As an adult, she had regularly attended a gym and gained lean muscle. How long would it have been for all of that to disappear? 

A face appeared above her. 

She jolted, letting out a wordless cry at the large woman who stared down at her. Her long tussles of light, blonde hair fell into her enclosure, her lips pursed as she peered down at her with dark brown eyes. There was a cold beauty to her that was only partially melted by the soft-hearted look on her face. Anna stared back at her with large, unblinking eyes.

“Oh, Ursa.” A hand, decorated with fine bands of silver and entwined gold, caressed her cheek. It was warm. “Your Aunt Walburga and I are having tea. I cannot attend you at all times.”

“I don’t understand why you just won’t let the house-elves take care of her, Druella.” Said Walburga, not unkindly.

Her heart seemed to catch in her throat as she stilled. Anna reversed the conversation in her head silently, mulling over the frequent use of certain names as a sick sense of dread welled up over her. _Oh no_ , she thought with the desperation of a dying (dead?) man.

The woman rolled her eyes out of sight of Walburga, turning back to the woman with an exasperated stare. “My grandmother hand-raised my mother, and my mother hand-raised me. It’s a tradition.”

“Your grandmother was a half-blood,” Walburga said airily, but there was a sneer in her voice that would have rattled steel.

 _Oh, fuck,_ Anna stared up in desolation.

“It’s _tradition,_ sister.” Said Druella with hard steel in her voice that had been absent before.

Clenching her fists beneath the silken sheets, she opened her mouth as did what any sane person who had just died and then come back to life in the gods-forsaken _fucking Black family_ would do. Anna cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm not sure of the updating schedule I'll be sticking to and I make no promises about this being on a continuous schedule. Think of this as a sort of... side-project if you will. Sorry, I think.


	2. Anna II

Anna found being a newborn, second time over and first time remembering it, was not a pleasant experience. This was most likely why all people had little or no memory of being a toddler. 

Being birthed to a high-status, magical family seemed to take off the edge and each and every need she had was attended for by house-elves with wrinkly fingers and bulging eyes or Druella herself, when she was available but it didn’t stop the humiliation that swelled when anybody so much as looked at her. Anna prided herself on her independence, on her ability to function by herself without help, even before she had been hit by a bus… or a car.

The memories of that night - or day, Anna couldn’t tell  _ or  _ remember - blurred with every passing second. Memories fell like water through her fingers and sunk into the sand leaving her with only the vague and unhelpful recollection of pain and agony and a hoarse, groaning sound that ached to replay. She grappled for the vague memories of her childhood that faded away and her teenage life, that wavered precariously between being lost and roaring in her head.

Light giggles sounded through the door which was almost soundproof -  _ almost _ because Druella was ridiculously overprotective even when there were spells for monitoring.  _ Spells can be fooled, _ she had ranted to Anna in one of her moments. There was a lethargic feeling to every movement, every blink of her eye, that reminded her of recovering from a terrible illness. 

“Shush, Bella.” A high-pitched voice whispered being the door. 

A light scuffle outside, shoes scratching against wood as the door began to creak open. “I’m the oldest, I can be as loud as I want!”

“Mother doesn’t want us to disturb the baby, Bella, which means we can’t get caught.” An exceptionally well-spoken voice broke through the murmured bickering. It reminded her of the pureblood ladies that Druella talked to.

“Well, I know that!” The oldest said, but significantly quieter. “Andy just needs to relax a bit. Mother’s having tea downstairs and Fathers went out again, nobody’s going to find us. Come on.”

The door opened without the creak that was uncharacteristic of such a heavy door. Anna could barely get a peek out of her crib but Druella took her out of it to show her off to other women when they came over, giving her a generous glance of the richly decorated room.  _ Magic, you idiot _ , her common sense hissed within her and Anna felt fresh embarrassment sweep over her. 

Soft pattering - because while the door might not creek but the floorboards  _ did _ \- against the carpet was her first warning that Anna was receiving unwelcome visitors. It wasn’t that she was adverse to them but sometimes, you just want a bit of peace to yourself.

The first head the leaned over was a young girl who was remarkably beautiful for such a young age. Anna was reminded of the perfect, antique dolls that used to sit on her grandma’s shelf. They had been treated with an almost-religious reverence from her grandma and polished regularly with the high-quality stuff that Anna couldn’t afford. Dark curls in perfect order hung over the crib and silver eyes that shone with mischief darted down to look at her.

_ Bellatrix _ , Anna thought faintly. 

“Oh, she looks just like me!” Bellatrix smirked, smug, beckoning one of her other sisters over with a spare hand. “Come see, Andy!”

Another girl appeared. Where Bellatrix was the sun, she was the moon. A version of less renown, but no less beautiful, with brown hair falling in waves instead of wild curls and brown eyes that seemed almost grey. What was most unsettling was a warmness to her face that Anna knew would lead to her disownment.  _ Andromeda _ gave her a slight smile. 

A humorous glint appeared in her eyes. “You know, you said the same thing about Cissa and look how she turned out.”

Bellatrix sniffed indignantly. “Might I remind you that even Father agreed with me. And, anyway, Cissy’s hair wasn’t as dark as this, remember?” She pulled at a curl on Anna’s head, watching it spring back. “It’s practically  _ black _ .”

There was a silence throughout the room as a smile stretched across Bellatrix’s face. Anna felt her lips twisting with an unwitting smile as she gazed up at the two sisters. Andromeda levelled her sister with a flat stare but the twitch of her lips showed she wasn’t at all upset. “Funny.”

“I know.” The oldest girl puffed up proudly before turning behind her with a swish of fabric. “C’mon Cissy, see the new baby. You were the one who wanted to come here, after all.”

A haughty huff that seemed to be ripped straight from Druella sounded throughout the room. Anna turned her gaze back to Andromeda who was still peering at her with an inquisitive gaze and unhidden adoration. 

“I can’t see her when you’re both standing _ in my way _ ,” Narcissa stated bluntly. Ah, that was Walburga’s tone. Anna had become intimately familiar with the pureblood supremacist in her brief tea visits but neither her nor Druella were fond of each other beyond a shared interest in Anna. Or Ursa, technically.

Andromeda gave her one last look before stepping to the side, giving the younger girl an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Cissa.”

A  _ humph _ as the younger girl trotted forward, leaning over the high rail of the crib. Large, silver eyes that were almost too big for her face and blonde hair that curled at the ends, Narcissa’s mouth formed an ‘o’ shape as she peered at Anna. If Bellatrix was a doll, Narcissa was a painting, flawless in all ways with her slight, delicate features. A hand reached into her crib, and it looked almost proportional compared to the adults.

Her fingers were cool and sudden against her cheek and Narcissa flinched back abruptly but didn’t move her hand beyond a light shifting. Anna frowned at the tingling sensation against her skin that was neither sore nor pleasant. It felt like the hum of magic when Druella did a small spell to warm the room or stir tea except it was  _ right _ beside her.

“Oh, she shocked you,” Andromeda noted calmly as if this wasn’t unusual occurrence. Anna almost jumped, being briefly reminded that the subdued girl was there.

Narcissa frowned as she pulled back, rubbing a finger over unblemished skin. “Mother says that could happen, didn’t she? It’s why we weren’t allowed to touch Sirius.”

“Ursa’s full of forming magic.” The middle girl explained kindly. “Yours is almost as young and just as wild, Cissa. Two fires don’t put each other out and the smoke needs somewhere to go.”

“It’s just a release of magical buildup between the two of you, is what she’s saying.” Bellatrix interrupted, staring down at Anna to hide a smirk that was far too interested to be cruel. “It happened with Andromeda too.”

Anna furrowed her brow. Nothing had been said about that little quirk in the original books and she hadn’t gotten past the first chapter of Cursed Child before wanting to fling it out the window. In fact, the whole magic system had been fairly rudimentary. Harry had been the gateway into the world as the protagonist, but he had only ever skimmed the surface on magical subjects with the readers. It had been great from an outsiders perspective, allowing anyone who could write to form a political and magical system that could fit perfectly and not disrupt canon but looking from the inside, it was becoming less of  _ creating _ and more of  _ learning _ .

“Oh, be quiet Bella.” 

“Told you,” Bellatrix said in a sing-song voice before settling down into a tone that resembled serious. Anna decided that the older girl just wasn’t made for solemnity. “But its why muggles and magical shouldn’t mix. If they burn fully-trained adults in fear, imagine what would happen if they have a  _ child _ .”

A mournful sound erupted from Andromeda’s mouth but Anna couldn’t see her expression for more feedback. “I feel sorry for them. Poor things.”

But neither of them noticed Narcissa’s horrified expression. Anna felt a surge of pity as she stared at the shell-shocked child. A hand came to rest on her shoulder but it was half-hearted at best and barely a comfort to somebody who had just found out their kind was  _ burned _ .

Anna knew, of course, that being burnt as a witch in this day and age was highly unlikely but the wizarding world had lost contact centuries ago. The major pureblood families had likely lost contact years earlier. Maybe some of them knew the truth but most of them were sheltered beneath their families suffocating hold, never really seeing what it was like and only ever viewing the world throw the tinted glasses of prejudice.

Bellatrix gave Narcissa a sympathetic look that didn’t look genuine in the slightest and formed more of a sneer. “And that’s why we never go to the muggles world  _ and  _ why we shouldn’t take anything  _ from _ it either. Muggleborns bring their own poison, Cissy. Father says its best to cut off the infection before it gets the rest of us.”

“But aren’t they magical too?” Narcissa said in a strained voice. Anna would have made a face if she was in her old body. For a child, she held it together remarkably well.

“Heartsbane is magical, but we still shouldn’t drink it,” Bellatrix said in a deceptively soft tone. It felt like the silk of Anna’s blanket but waiting to strangle her if she got too close. “They don’t mean to be bad, they just are.”

“Oh,” Narcissa said in a heavy voice. The mood of the room had dropped considerably since Anna had first heard them whispering outside the door. A secret trip to visit the new ‘baby’ had turned into an indoctrination into blood supremacy. 

It wasn’t the first she had heard of it; Walburga was an open supporter of the stuff, spouting off into rambles every time the word  _ muggle _ was so much as mentioned. Druella wasn’t her opposite, giving agreeing hums with blank eyes. Uninterested, not because she disagreed with her resident pureblood but because Walburga’s speeches were drier than the Sahara in the summer.

A sullen silence encompassed the trio of girls as they stood beside the crib. Anna could see Bellatrix passing looks with someone above the younger girl’s head, Andromeda probably. It was neither awkward nor uncomfortable but it was certainly strange. She had never thought in a million years she’d end up here, watching the two to-be-estranged Black sisters peer over the mother of Draco Malfoy’s head. 

A slight laugh spilt from her lips unwillingly and Anna inwardly cursed the part of her that got hysterically entertained whenever anything bad happened. A wicked smirk formed on Bellatrix’s lips and there was something in her eyes that resembled desperation-

“Wonder what she finds so-”

The door opened and the smirk fell off the oldest sisters face.

The only reason Anna knew that the door opened was because of the light that flooded in and the way all of the sisters (well, she couldn’t see Andromeda anymore, but she assumed she did the same) turned around with faces of badly-hidden shock. The trio stared on with equal amounts of trepidation and expectation.

Anna made a sound that she hoped sounded like, ‘ _ who’s there? _ ’ but nobody paid attention to her as she lay in her crib. 

“What are you  _ doing _ here?” A sharp voice rang out. 

Shoes shuffled against the soft carpet before stopping very abruptly. She couldn’t see past the long hair of the sisters that blocked her meagre view. Anna tried to peer past the thick locks but even through the gaps, she could only make out the vague figure of a woman before her weak muscles forced her to lie back down.

“We only wanted to see Ursa, Aunt Rosetta,” Narcissa said quietly. She felt the disapproval that was radiating off the woman in waves halt at the little at the girl’s words. Anna would have smirked. 

Andromeda chimed in. “Mother won’t let us see her and well, Cissa’s never had a younger sister before-”

“She was very right not to,” Rosetta reprimanded gently. “Your sister was very sick for a short while. The mediwitches advised as little contact as possible until she passed her first month.”

That… explained a lot. The weariness that covered her like her blanket, the strained movements and the way her body shuddered with sudden fever in the dark of the morning and the shallow shadow of the night. 

“Mother never told us that,” Bellatrix said, almost mournfully. 

Rosetta hummed. “Yes, well, not much to be done about it now. Ursa’s almost in the clear now and I’m sure it will do little harm for a bit more company, but your mother won’t be happy to see you in the nursery. Come on, you lot.”

Anna could smell the glee fall in rivets off her blood-siblings as they stumbled out, cheerful in their easy escape. Bellatrix turned quickly on her heel, almost aware of the trouble that she’d get into and Andromeda followed her lead eagerly like a little duckling. It was only Narcissa, who looked nearly regretful, that had to be dragged along. Anna  _ considered _ babbling a goodbye.

When they left as they came - not at all discreetly - Rosetta wandered over to her crib. Anna didn’t need to know her surname or canon information to know who she was. The blonde hair that was curled into a tight bun, the cold planes of her face and the dark eyes were almost a carbon-copy of Druella. For a brief moment, if she hadn’t known the woman herself, she would’ve taken her for Druella.

There was a difference though - where Druella was beautiful, Rosetta was plain with her thin lips and nose that was just a bit too large to fit comfortably. Where Druella’s hair shone in the light, becoming almost white, Rosetta carried a more dull gold sheen that only ever glinted blonde. Their eyes seemed to be the only similarity between them. 

“Dru was right.” Rosetta raised her eyebrows. “You do look like Bellatrix. Although, I’d place more of a wager on Lucretia, with those eyes. I bet they think you’ll turn grey with time but I say you’ll have the dark eyes of your mother.”

A hand drifted along the edge of the crib and her wand dangled into Anna’s crib. It was a tantalizing taste of what was to come and it was all of her self-restraint not to grab at it. The woman seemed amused as she traced Anna’s eyesight back to the wand, flicking it between her fingers like it was a cheap card trick. Anna watched it disappear between her fingers with wide eyes.

“Curious too.” She was levelled with a contemplative look. “Ah, well, I’ve got my look. Dru is wondering where I am by now. This is my last time home until I leave, I suppose I better make the best of it.”

It struck her suddenly, that perhaps this woman wasn’t supposed to be here either. As _ little contact as possible _ , rung in her mind like a warning siren. It brought the topic back to the fact that Anna had been ill when she was born, which made her frown. Magic was  _ good _ as curing ails but maybe this was just a special case of something nasty.

The woman left as swiftly as she came, the door closing silently behind her leaving Anna to her numerous thoughts, theories and hollowed mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Bellatrix is 8, Andromeda is 7 and Narcissa is 5, give or take. Anna/Ursa was born on November 1st, 1960 which places her in the same year group as Regulus. This chapter takes place in late November/early December.
> 
> A/N 2: Hi! Thanks for reading! Seriously, I appreciate it. I've shifted some of the ages down but the main characters (marauders, snape, lily etc) are unchanged. I got a question about this being a gen fic and honestly, I'm pretty sure that this one is definitely gen but I have a while to go yet, so maybe it will change. I hope not, because I'm pretty certain I'm aiming for a gen fic. Please drop a kudos, it'll make my day happier! And stay safe!
> 
> {edited - 10/02/2021}


	3. Narcissa I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm updating rather fast, but that's because in recent days I've had little do to but write. So I'm not sure if I'll get to update again until... friday? maybe a bit later.

The door opened as silently as it had when Narcissa had first snuck up to the nursery. The only difference was the lack of whispered bickering at her back. Narcissa kept snapping her head back, expecting to see the dark figures of her sisters and only seeing the empty hallways. Her heart caught in her throat every time even despite her reasoning that nobody should be following her. 

She shook off the lingering feeling that she was being watched, so trivial compared to the distant shouts of her parents. Narcissa wished that her Aunt Walburga was around, for once. Her Aunt was a force to be reckoned with, even being heavily pregnant and thoroughly exhausted, but Father would never dare raise his voice in front of her - _or_ at her, Merlin forbid. The last time he had, Aunt Walburga had thrashed him so soundly that even Bellatrix had been struck silent.

A slight smile slipped onto her face unwittingly as Narcissa let the door close behind her. The faint sounds of arguing which had been slowly fading as she moved through the house finally ended, unable to pierce through the heavy wood of the door. If Narcissa listened hard enough, she could hear the slight murmur of it reaching the nursery, but it was nothing compared to the blaring siren it had been earlier.

“Hello,” Narcissa whispered to her new sister. She tried to not slump against the door is sheer relief - _Blacks don’t slump, girl,_ Aunt Cassiopeia shrieked in her head, _stand up straight before I take the rod to you_ \- and managed to merely lean against the wood.

Her new sister, Ursa, didn’t so much make a squeak. Narcissa remembered their secret excursion to the nursery a day ago and how her sister had been so quiet, barely rustling the air. She had smiled well enough and if she thought hard enough, Narcissa could even remember the vague imprint of laughter against her memory. 

Although, Bellatrix said that babies didn’t _speak_ so much as scream, so maybe that was it. Bella was usually right about these things. 

“You’re so _quiet_ .” Narcissa was surprised at the unbidden disdain in her tone. “Mother’s worried about you and Father says your strong enough, but you never do _anything_. That’s the only way to get strength, Bella says.”

_Or, Aunt Cassiopeia says_.

The haunting memories of her great-aunt still lingered in her mind. Bellatrix had warmed to her like a moth to a flame and Andromeda had hidden in the secret passageway between the painting of Sirius I and Phineas Nigellus whenever she came over. It was fortunate that her visits were sparse and her brief attentions were lavished onto Bella, who accepted it happily. It didn’t stop her barking threats at Narcissa from across the sitting room whenever she slid by, though.

Brushing the thought of her great-aunt out of her mind - _Occlumency,_ Mother explained gently, _is the art of guarding your mind_ \- Narcissa returned her attention to the baby in the crib. The sides of it were made of solid wood and she had to stand on her tip-toes to get a good look at Ursa. It was plastered with golden engravings that formed constellations and the walls spun with the Black family tapestries.

Narcissa sighed as she peered her sister, dark curls springing from her head. Ursa’s eyes were beginning to darken from the baby-blue shade she was born with but Bellatrix had her sights set on a silver-grey. It was tempting to run her hands through the blossoming curls yet Narcissa dare not reach her hand in again, not without her sisters or her mother around. 

The way the magic had shot up her arm was almost unnatural, two opposite forces colliding. She held herself lucky that it wasn’t on purpose. Even the thought of having the full force of somebody else’s magic ram into your own made her shudder. Narcissa wondered if that was how people got knocked back in magical duels - the stunning spell kept people in place and whilst a powerful _expelliarmus_ could push somebody back, it was only a few yards at most. 

“Mother and Father are fighting, again.” She started with no great excitement. “Andy sent me up here because they were getting violent.” Narcissa paused, continuing on in a near whisper. “I think Father was drinking.”

Mother had always said that being honest with your family was the way to an easier life but her father’s drinking was always, _always_ a taboo subject. Bellatrix had brought it up once in a casual conversation, “ _Is father drinking tonight?_ ” and been rewarded with a glare that so vicious it rivalled Aunt Walburga’s. Since then, the sisters hadn’t dared mention it, even in their own company.

Ursa looked up at her, squirming in the blue silken blankets that were neatly embroidered. Narcissa offered her a thin smile and resisted the urge to run a hand through her hair. The thought of experiencing another jolt made her nauseous. 

“It’s better with you, I think.” Narcissa’s smile began to strain on her face. “Father was so sad when little Rigel had to go away but since you didn’t have to, he’s happy. That’s a good thing, Ursa, you’re a good thing.”

Her baby sister made a quiet noise that Narcissa couldn’t put her finger on but it cheered her mood nonetheless. She could barely remember Rigel, apart from a tuft of blonde hair like her own and blue-turning-brown eyes that her mother had fussed over. Then, one day, her mother had told her that he wouldn’t come back and his name was never mentioned again.

Narcissa had asked Bellatrix and for once, the older girl had hesitated. Her oldest sister was all sharp edges and broken glass, spiting rebuttals at her minute complaints on the regular. But her sister had taken her hand in a tight grip and told her that Narcissa had been a difficult baby for their mother to handle, especially during the small dragon-pox outbreak, and that it had made it harder for other potential babies to be born. 

Then, she had gone to her mother with the information, still curious even though she felt she shouldn’t be. Narcissa hadn’t understood, _still_ didn’t, really but Mother had told her that it wasn’t her fault, that sometimes circumstance is a horrible thing. Which had her demanding the meaning of circumstance out of the nearest house-elf.

“Missus Narcissa?” A squeak voice like an unoiled door hinge screeched behind her. 

Narcissa smothered a flinch resolutely - _Ha, do you see that, Andy? She jumped!_ \- before turning towards the house-elf. All of the housebound ones kept to themselves, sequestered in an abandoned corner of the manor and out of sight but the few that were allowed to roam - roam being a very generous word for _seen_ \- made themselves scarce in the presence of a witch or wizard of the house.

“What are you doing here?” Narcissa asked haughtily, ignoring the little voice in the back of her head that told her to be nicer. It was far overshadowed by the part that wondered if the elf had been sent to bring her back down and this time, there was no Aunt Rosetta to cover for her.

The elf rung its hands together, looking up at her with round, bulbous eyes. Its pillowcase was embroidered with faded suns and stars and stained with strange substances. “Mistress Druella a-asks Missi to check on the little miss every few hours.” The elf stuttered out. “Missi was just checking quickly, Miss Narcissa, and giving the little miss a check over. Missi will be going soon-”

“Isn’t she better now?” She furrowed her brows, turning back to where her sister stared up with curious eyes. “Rosetta says she’s better now.”

“The-the Lady Rosetta is very not-skilled in the healing arts.” It twisted its hands in its pillowcase, large ears flopping so pathetically that Narcissa felt an unwelcome stir of sympathy. “Miss Ursa m-might be out of danger but even Missi can’t tell if it might wors-worsen. S-so, Mistress asks Missi to check.”

Narcissa pursed her lips and the elf began to quiver in truth now. She dismissed the pang of pity with a mental wave of her hand - _behind closed doors, in boxes, hidden away from prying eyes -_ and turned her back to the house-elf in a dismissive gesture. 

She couldn’t see behind her, but she was sure the creature had stopped its pathetic trembling when she lost eye contact.

( _Gifted, in the mind arts, a repayment if you will-_ )

“Alright.” Narcissa huffed, fingers settled on the crib, feeling rather out of place. “But don’t _tell_ anyone I was here.”

The house-elf stuttered an agreement and the world _hummed_.

Her sight was awash with foreign magical energy that made her toes tingle and her eyes blink back tears before shuddering into its usual stillness. In a slight moment, not even enough for her to _blink_ , the world had been full of such power that she had never fathomed existed. She looked to the shaking elf, who for all their trembling stood sturdy on two feet as her magic fluttered, unused to the powerful magic that house-elves were brimming with.

“What was that?” She all but demanded. Ursa hadn’t changed, as if the world had gone by normal, still staring up at Narcissa was wide eyes that were growing more and more interested by the minute.

“‘Twas elven magics, Missus Narcissa,” The house-elf said, almost proudly. The sight rubbed her the wrong way.“M-Mistress Druella says you be more sensitive to magics. Missi meant not to upset you-”

Narcissa tightened her grip on the crib. “Go away!”

There was only a light snap as the house-elf left without a word. 

She watched the elf go with a sense of deep regret that was quickly squashed beneath her hurt pride as she seethed over the sudden and unwelcome surprise.

Ursa was still gazing at her with wide, open eyes that made a thin smile stretch across her lips. It was tempered by the events of the day, but her sister was still so innocent, unaware of her sisters’ troubles or their parent’s problems. It was yet bizarre that she was as silent as the grave, but Narcissa supposed there had to be concessions made. 

“Bella says it’s weird I can sense that,” Narcissa admitted to the baby quietly, feeling rather stupid. Her sister would neither hear nor understand, but perhaps that was what she needed. “And I heard Father say it was a ‘by-product’ of something and Mother keeps getting angry at him for keeping it a secret because I keep reaching into other peoples minds accidentally. Maybe you’ll be a natural Occlumens to battle my natural Legilimency.”

“Mother tries to teach me.” She sighed against the wooden crib, feeling oddly out-of-place. “But she’s not very good and Father was only the second son of the secondary line, he was never taught _advanced_ mind arts. They both agree that I need a proper tutor, befitting of my birth, but neither of them agrees on _how_ I should get one.”

Ursa babbled up at her.

“They are stupid.” Narcissa agreed distantly, even though she wasn’t sure that was what the baby had said. “Do you think they’ve stopped yet? I can’t hear anything.”

The world seemed to hold still, soundless but for the soft shifting of Ursa and Narcissa’s light breathing. No wind swept through and no words were spoken. 

“Maybe I’ll stay. I don’t have to go _right_ now.” Narcissa pulled away from the crib, missing Ursa’s disappointed look as she pulled away, clambering up onto an ornately decorated chair. Painted in green and gold, it wasn’t comfortable in the slightest. Narcissa shifted to make herself just a bit more comfortable.

“Do you want to hear a story?” She asked nobody in particular as she pulled The Beedle and the Bard off the shelf beside her. Narcissa flicked through the pages, reaching the first story with a nostalgic smile. “There was once a kindly old wizard who used his magic generously…”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm adding a lot of additions to characters that aren't in canon, but I'd really like to stress that we never get much of an in-depth look at the Black family beyond Sirius and a touch-down on Regulus. At the minute, the characters are children which means they have a lot less self-control, even being Black-raised.
> 
> A/N 2: Please, leave a kudos or drop a comment! :) Thanks for reading and stay safe! Especially on the runup to Christmas!!


	4. Anna III

As the days drawled on and the song stayed the same, the once-interesting snipes and shared disdain between Druella and Walburga became sandpaper on Anna’s ears. The few interruptions she did have were by no means great and more troubling than the _interruptions_ in question knew.

Narcissa’s visit had been a welcome one, to Anna's surprise. Her words, on the other hand, were not. 

Anna had been a huge fan of the Harry Potter books and had gorged herself on fanfiction. It had been an addiction, one she found hard to shake and when she did, well, if Anna returned to them every once in a while, nobody knew but her. She had read half the wiki and all the book and even with such a long time and her memories disappearing in the wind - cut down to when she was thirteen, her childhood seemed like a fog she couldn't lift - Anna still knew the lore. Knew it well enough that when Narcissa first opened her mouth to say ‘ _I’m a natural Legilimens_ ’ something was seriously up.

Knew it well enough that there hadn’t been a ‘Rigel’ mentioned in canon.

 _A Legilimens_ , she had thought with gritted teeth but Narcissa had looked so unrealistically full of sorrow that Anna had lowered herself to her most inner, most natural instincts for once. A natural Legilimens had been explored as a fanfiction concept, a magic-sensitive user had been used in _so_ many cliches and the younger Black was subject to their abrasions instead of the self-insert Mary Sue.

Anna would have been majorly upset if it wasn’t for the fact that a _natural Legilimens_ hadn’t caught onto her whole reincarnation act. 

_“Maybe you’ll be a natural Occlumens to battle my natural_ _Legilimency_ _.”_ Echoed in her head, that rich tone of Narcissa reverberating through her skull unwitting and unwelcome. Maybe Narcissa was untrained except, no, she seemed perfectly capable and only overwhelmed at the thought of her abilities going buck wild.

Would it make sense, for Anna to be the opposite of Narcissa’s Legilimency? 

It rose the question again, what effect Anna accidentally had created on canon. _Rigel_ , Narcissa had told her with such a childish adoration and nostalgia that it hadn’t taken long to pin down the fact he had died young. If there had been a child born to the Blacks, who had died early, wouldn’t it had been mentioned? The books went out of their way to announce long ago disowned members but missed out on one singular boy? What were the chances?

The odds made her feel more nauseous than usual. 

Druella had a strange fascination with carrying Anna around with her but for the first month of her ‘confinement’, as Anna liked to call it, Druella had been restrained to walking around the four walls of the nursery. The woman was ecstatic with joy at being able to take Anna with her as she made her way through the house.

It had been there that Anna had first met Cygnus, her should-be father. The only information that Anna had on him was that he was Walburga’s sister, father of Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa and if the younger girl was to be believed, an up-and-coming alcoholic. The damned liquid haunted her even after death, she thought balefully. 

“Druella.” Cygnus had said in a cold, flat tone that matched Walburga’s exactly. “Is that her, then?”

Druella had tensed, so slightly that Anna wouldn’t have felt it if she wasn’t always in her arms, and Anna had felt the overwhelming urge to spit in his face. Anna wasn’t a huge fan of the woman, to be frank. She believed in the magical version of Nazi values and sought to teach her children them in turn but for the past month, Druella had been Anna’s almost-constant companion. She didn’t want to see her hurt, although getting a bit shook up might do her some good.

 _Is this Stockholm Syndrome?_ Anna thought, aghast.

“It is _her_ , yes.” Druella had spat out and it was so uncharacteristically cold that Anna had peered up at the woman to see if she was about to pull a knife, or a wand, on the man. “ _Your_ daughter, Ursa.”

Cygnus had approached her, boots clicking against the floor as he looked down at her. Silver eyes and dark hair that curled wildly. _Like Bella’s_ , Anna thought distantly. He could be described as almost pretty with such delicate features, it was no wonder all three Black sisters were beautiful. 

“Hello, child.” He had murmured with an inflexion in his voice she couldn’t pin down. Anna had squirmed and the shadow of a smile had appeared on his face before he had turned up to face Druella again. Anna was clenched to her chest, held so tightly that she was surprised her face wasn’t buried in fabric.

Druella had nodded tightly, face strained with a placid expression. “Good day, then, husband.”

Warmth evaporated from his face, turning his lips thin and eyes narrowed as a heavy hand was placed upon Druella’s shoulder. His lips curled into a sneer but his irritation had been aimed elsewhere judging by the unruffled stare of Druella. Must have been, because Anna was gaining a healthy amount of respect for Druella’s ability to scare and scorn with only a look. “We’ll be hosting the Yule dinner this year, Druella. Make the necessary preparations with the elves, won’t you?”

With that, he had continued down the hall at a hastier pace than he had before. Anna would have joined him if she could. The glacier gaze on Druella’s face would freeze the bravest of souls as the woman breathed in a sharp breath that promised sweet vengeance. 

“That man…” Druella had whispered furiously, voice lined and tired with years of a falling-apart marriage that Anna knew too well.

So that’s how Anna ended up here. Stuffed into a silken contraption that had too much silk and her curls falling around her head as Druella placed her into a woven bassinet that sat on a sturdier surface than the plush sofas. Distantly, she could hear the bright chatter of the three sisters as they hurried around the house. Anna didn’t know much about ‘dinners’ but she assumed that they were important, positively formal but rarely hosted by Druella and Cygnus.

Anna shifted again, feeling lucky that the material was as soft as it was. Even as an adult, she had never liked family gatherings. There was always a gap between her and her relatives, with the exception of her brother, on both sides. A rift that had never mended and a rift she had never sought to mend and she had been - still was - fine to leave it like that.

The door flung open silently, like all the other doors in the godforsaken manor. 

It was Bellatrix who came bounding in because for all her youth Narcissa was bent to posture and demurity. Bellatrix's hair was pinned in place and kept in place by magic and for someone who would look far more at home in a pair of trousers, the older girl seemed to bask in the dress she wore. _It suits her_ , Anna thought.

Andromeda came in after her. The little time Anna had spent observing the sisters had highlighted the fact that rather than Bellatrix and Narcissa, the two purebloods ‘ _left standing_ ’ to put it bluntly, were more indifferent to each other than perceived. Andromeda played the almost-twin to Bellatrix well, if not a shade quieter and a touch more affectionate. 

Narcissa trailed in after, back straight and chin up. The picture of the perfect pureblood, with her blonde hair arranged in a complicated hairstyle. It was offputting to see a look like that on a person so young and it would have been like seeing a tiny adult if it wasn’t for the smile that she swapped - or, tried to - with Anna and the way Narcissa fidgeted on the spot as if she wasn’t quite sure she was supposed to _be_ here.

Druella gave them all a bright smile that hid the weariness beneath. “I thought you had gone to greet your Aunt and Uncle.”

Bellatrix brightened but there was the definite hint of something nasty. “We asked an elf to let us know when they’re coming through, just in case Cissy misses it.”

Andromeda gave Bellatrix a reproaching look that Anna would have missed if she wasn’t where she was sitting. It was gone before anybody who wasn’t looking closely could see it. Anna felt her curiosity stir, that damned beast. 

“I wouldn’t _miss_ it.” Narcissa huffed as all eyes landed on her. Anna half-expected her to deflate but she merely raised her chin. “At least I don’t have to rely on my _lessers_.”

 _Oh, shit,_ Anna thought with metaphorically raised eyebrows. Her current experiences were leading to a professional blank face. Bellatrix’s face morphed into one of rage that made Voldemort at his angriest seem sweet but a hand on her arm stilled the stirring storm. Andromeda gave both of them flat stares, looking so much like Druella that Anna had to give her double-take. 

“Narcissa is just _over-eager_ , isn’t that right, Cissa?” Andromeda said sweetly, making no room for disagreement. 

Narcissa shuffled awkwardly. 

Bellatrix glared steadily back, her fury withheld only by the middle sister but still ready to lash out verbally.

Druella sighed as if this was a daily occurrence, steeling her face into one of hard iron. “If both of you keep bickering, I’ll have you eat with the house elves like dogs! Bellatrix, go to the floo and wait for our guests. Andromeda, be a dear and join her. Narcissa, stay _here_. I’ll not have you two sniping over their heads if you can't act properly.”

Their mother's threats cowed neither girl if the steely looks on their faces were any proof, but Bellatrix took a tight hold of Andromeda’s hand and turned on her heel with a dramatic flair, all but stomping back out from where she came. Narcissa gave her a nasty look when the door closed, practically skipping over to where Anna was sitting with a distinctively cheerier mood than before.

“Bella's so bossy.” She complained with a frown, sitting on the sofa with a degree of grace that should be impossible for a child to accomplish. 

“She’s just jealous, dear.” Said Druella absently, placing herself beside her daughter with a frown. “Bellatrix was lauded for her power as a child and now you are taking that spotlight. She’ll learn to share in time.”

Narcissa wasn’t appeased but Anna thought she never would be. 

“Is that why she doesn’t like Sirius?” She queried with the innocence of a six-year-old. 

Druella gave her a sharp look. “Bellatrix was the heir of the Black family before he came along, to-be one of the most powerful witches of her generation and garnering praise from every relative from the family. Now, she is being upstaged by those younger than herself. Anybody would have trouble adjusting to that.”

Narcissa tilted her head. “Did _you_ have trouble adjusting?”

Anna almost choked on her own breath. Narcissa didn’t seem to realise the impact of her words as her mother stared at her with a cold, hard expression. She was waiting for one of them to break, for Druella to spit something unreasonable or for Narcissa to spill another of her secrets. 

“Yes,” Druella said coolly, still unwilling to snap at her daughter if thinning of her lips was anything to go by. “If you wish for someone to entertain you, find it with Ursa. I have duties to attend to.”

Druella got up swiftly and swept away, hands clenched tightly at her sides and looking the epitome of an ice statue. Anna watched her go with a feeling of mild sorrow.

“Oh, I must have hurt her feelings,” Narcissa said, rather bluntly. “I do that a lot. I don’t mean to, Ursa, I don’t but sometimes people just think _so loudly_. You think nice and quietly, not like Bella or Mother or baby Sirius, it makes you a good company. For me, at least.”

The girl stilled as if pondering something. “Even Uncle doesn’t think as quietly as you do, you know, and he was trained by Aunt Cassiopeia. But it will be good to see him again. Uncle Orion isn’t very talkative but he brings the _best_ gifts. Like last year, he brought me a...”

_Even Uncle doesn’t think as quietly as you do._

Anna swallowed but the ready-made denial couldn't swim past the proof.

 _Fuck_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I'm splitting up Yule into two parts! The next piece will be a lot of the Black family shenanigans and bickering and we'll meet Sirius! But, you know, he's currently about 1 year old so it's really just an introductory piece on him. 
> 
> A/N 2: The thing about Occlumens and Legilimens? That can either be in canon or not, I'm still trying to figure it out, but it's staying in the story. There's a definite cause. Magic needs balance.


	5. Anna IV

Anna passed the few measly minutes - _hours, seconds, who could tell_ \- with Narcissa’s inane babbling in her ears. It became a comforting tune that she could relax against, a pillar that supported her weight and, as if the girl could understand that, something that had her unbothered by continued lack of verbal and physical responses. 

Trying to process that she had been gifted some natural ability that, by all means, was powerful was something Anna was still stuck over. The chatter was a backdrop that she tuned in to when she wanted, Anna somehow separating her mind into two pieces. One focused on Narcissa and another on her starting panic attack.

In the duration that Narcissa talked for, stumbling over certain words adorably, Anna learnt that Orion brought the best presents, that Aunt Walburga thought that Orion was a fool and that Pollux and Arcturus enjoyed spitting vicious, mental insults with each other and spoke them aloud often enough if they weren’t in the other’s company.  _ How very interesting _ , she thought as the girl babbled on meaninglessly. 

Narcissa stopped suddenly, shooting up onto her feet with bright eyes. The two halves of her mind snapped together obediently and Anna shivered with the force of it. “Aunt Walburga and Uncle Orion are here!”

She was right. As soon as the words escaped her mouth, Anna could hear the distant sounds of a haughty woman -  _ Walburga _ , Anna thought wryly, like greeting an old enemy - and Druella’s dulcet tones trading verbal jabs as they caught up on the latest gossip between insults. Most likely, Bellatrix and Andromeda were trailing behind the duo - or trio, if Orion was there - like dutiful daughters and listening with smiles as their Aunt and Mother sparred.

“..take that boy anywhere in the future!” Walburga’s voice sounded through the wooden doors and Anna braced herself for her sharp voice. “I can only hope the next one will be quieter in the future.”

The door opened and out came the two figures who she heard on an almost daily basis. In truth, Anna had never caught more than a passing glimpse of Walburga but she had listened to more than enough of her rants to get a stereotypical depiction of her. It was rather surprising to see, instead of the disintegrating woman described in the portrait, a dark-haired, bright-eyed woman with features that could kill a man.

Walburga took in the decor of the room - fairy lights, green draped over every available upholstery, enchanted tinsel that twisted around the metal hangings and false snow fluttering down the window panes - and gave it a satisfied nod, a near-smirk appearing on her face. 

“Such a job you’ve done with the decor, dear sister, truly befitting of the next heir. You would have thought Cygnus would receive us, wouldn’t you?" Walburga flicked her long hair over her shoulder. "It’s much more appropriate to have the head of the house greet guests.”

“My husband is busy with the floo network to Ridgeway. The old manor’s network has been working up in recent years.” Druella raised an eyebrow, manoeuvring around a silver statue that  _ glittered _ . She looked to be in a much better mood as she approached Narcissa - Bellatrix and Andromeda following obediently - with a milder disposition than she left with. 

Narcissa relaxed at the lack of hostility from her mother and Anna felt herself relax in turn, not even noticing that she had become apprehensive in Druella’s presence. She shook off the relief she felt for the younger girl easily, feeling it fall to the side.

“It always has been.”

Anna had almost missed Orion Black, caught up in her own mind. The man was taller than Cygnus had been but no less delicate with high-cheekbones and hair that fell to his shoulders, half of it tied back with a silver ribbon. Whilst Druella could match him in beauty, Anna thought, not unkindly, she could safely say that Walburga had them both out-matched.

Behind him was a house-elf, young but stunted with a clipped ear and down-cast eyes, who carried a small toddler in its arms. From where she was, Anna could only make out a few fluffs of dark hair and a wriggly shape that  _ begged _ for attention.

Walburga sniffed haughtily as if only noticing her husband was there for the first time. “I take it we are the first to arrive? I find my father is often on time to the annual Yule dinner, Alphard complained about it regularly enough. Don't tell me you forgot to invite him, Druella.”

Anna didn’t know how that could be taken as an insult but Druella’s expression froze into one of polite tolerance. “Trust me, I am as equally as befuddled as you are,  _ sister _ . ”

_ It  _ _ was probably some unwritten pureblood rule or some past event that Walburga is alluding to _ , Anna thought with a strange weariness. 

Now Anna was using vocabulary like ‘allude’. What her world had come to.

“We are half an hour early by your demand, Walburga, let me remind you.” Orion cut in quickly, his tone neither frosty nor scalding. Anna felt unnerved by it regardless. “I have a new niece I’d like to meet; then, you don’t mind.”

_ You  _ won’t  _ mind _ , was the hidden message there. Anna nearly brightened at understanding the hidden meaning even if it was blaring like a siren in her face until she noticed the blank stare on Narcissa.

Anna shifted in her general direction, hoping to offer the child even the slightest bit of comfort. Neither of her elder sisters seemed to care too much, enraptured by the adults and their talks and Druella were too absorbed with battling Walburga to turn her head in their direction.

“You’ll find her as quiet as you on the best of days. Now, Druella, don’t you mind if I check on Cygnus?” Walburga remarked nonchalantly, already turning back to leave the sitting room. Druella’s stare had turned into one that would rival the arctic in terms of freezing but she merely tilted her head with a sliver of a smile.

“So close to your darling brother, I’d be almost a  _ disloyal  _ wife to keep you two apart.”

Narcissa’s eyes widened, turning away from the two women hurriedly. Anna wondered for a moment if she would press the girl on the details if she could still speak. Unfortunately, she didn’t, being a baby with little vocal strength but she  _ did _ reach out a chubby hand to grip one of her fingers instead. Narcissa’s expression didn’t clear but her grip did loosen on the bassinet, to Anna’s delight.

“Marriage calls it’s due, don’t you think?” Walburga offered with a razor-sharp smile before sweeping out of the room with a dramatic flair that Anna had only seen on Bellatrix.

A silence enraptured the room. Bellatrix and Andromeda swapped unidentifiable looks and whilst Anna weren’t sure if they were overwhelmed or bored, there was a certain tinge to the air around them that gave them the air of excitement. Druella’s cold expression crumpled into one of placidity as soon as Walburga was out of sight, looking a sight more comfortable with just Orion - and Sirius, technically, who had been placed on the opposing sofa before the house-elf snapped away - in the room.

“That was uncalled for, Dru,” Orion said in a tone that could almost be mistaken for as fond.

Druella gave him a look of disdain. “Are you saying I’m right, Orion?”

A gazing contest between the two led to neither being the victor. Anna pondered on what they meant, exactly. Narcissa seemed to have a firm, yet shaky, hold on what the conversation had implied but Anna was still stuck on the finer details. Neither Orion nor Walburga was happy in the slightest with their marriage if the distance between them and the frigidity shared was anything to take note of.

Narcissa’s grip on the bassinet tightened but this time, she seemed much more relaxed as she turned back to the adults who had yet to relent. Bellatrix and Andromeda were conversing quietly between themselves, secret smiles on their faces, but neither one of them failed to turn to Druella when Narcissa did. 

“Grandfather’s here!” Narcissa said spiritedly but she lacked the same enthusiasm she had when Orion and Walburga had turned up. All gazes landed on the door as Narcissa clambered down from the sofa with a strange grace that shouldn’t be present. It kept striking her, that despite her age and abilities, Narcissa was still raised a pureblood child and held those ideals. 

Narcissa skidded over to where Sirius sat, the toddler looking out-of-place and grumpy but strangely silent, and picked him up with as much gentle handling as she could. A lighter chatter, not at all resembling the bustle that had Walburga, was the only warning as the large door opened. 

Cygnus was conversing quietly with an older man who held a resemblance to him, at least in colouring. He had flecks of silver lining his hair, and while his face was lined with the tenure of living, there was a delicacy to his features that had been passed to his son.  _ Pollux _ , Anna thought grimly as she watched the pair enter the sitting room. 

But, even more curiously, a woman of equal age was holding onto his arm. The numerous Black genes outshone her but there was a softer, rounded beauty to her that was mothering in quality. Her cheeks were plump and her eyebrows high, and her eyes were shaped like almonds. She was short of stature and was rather curvacious but looked all-around happy, smiling up a Pollux with a lined face.

Walburga trailed behind her brother, enraptured in a conversation with a man who shared Orion’s eye colour.  _ Arcturus _ , Anna thought as she observed the bordering on angry expression on his face. His features were broader than Orion’s, she noted with a peculiar curiosity, and he seemed painted with the brush of annoyance. 

“Father.” Orion greeted, not unkindly. There was a stilted note to his voice that told an entire story. 

“My son,” Arcturus noted with a half-hidden sneer of disdain. Compared to Cygnus and Pollux, who, whilst not looking to be the warmest father-son pair in the world, were talking in low, pleasing tones Anna would have thought they hated each other's guts. Anna couldn’t hear what Cygnus and Pollux were saying but Narcissa seemed to give her a smug glance as she scrambled past them with Sirius wobbling unsteadily beside her.

Anna wasn’t sure whether or not babies should be walking at that age but, she made a careful note on what age Sirius was, he looked mightily unsteady yet determined all the same. 

“This is Ursa,” Narcissa whispered to the boy, ushering him up. “Say hello to your new cousin, Siri.”

Sirius looked ruffled by Narcissa’s overbearing nature, something that Anna hadn’t taken much notice of, to be frank. The toddler waved his chubby hand with hesitant enthusiasm, reaching over Narcissa’s lap to peer closer as he babbled but no sound came out. He opened his mouth again, trying to speak, but he only stirred the air with heavy, heaving breaths.

"Silencing charm, Siri. What did you do now?" Narcissa murmured quietly, keeping a tight hold around his waist. 

Narcissa was careful to not let his robes wrinkle as Sirius jerked wildly. His hair, reaching his ears is loose waves, flung around his head like a halo as he thrashed. Narcissa only patted his hair with a short smile on her face. 

“I assume the children won’t be joining us at dinner?” Arcturus asked after a long, drawn-out silence. 

Anna didn’t need to look to see the rising fury on Bellatrix’s face. 

“Sirius and Ursa will be placed in the nursery for the duration of time it takes us to eat.” Cygnus slid over to the opposing sofa where Druella had taken a seat. Walburga sat on his other side, giving Druella a silently smug look. “I’m assuming that Charis, Callidora and Alphard will be at the annual Yule rituals even if they all... denied invitations to dinner.”

“We’re all still too young to go.” Bellatrix huffed quietly.

Anna jolted her hand an inch away from hitting Sirius up the face, at the girl who had unexpectedly appeared on the sofa. It came as a surprise that the girl had even known the meaning of subtly. Narcissa didn’t seem to care in the slightest, pulling Sirius back from where he was starting to drool into the bassinet. 

“ _ You _ get to go next year, Bella.” Andromeda reminded her softly, looking both anxious and envious. “You’ll tell us what happened, won’t you-”

“I’ll tell _you_ , of course. Otherwise, where’s the fun for Cissy?” Bellatrix agreed enthusiastically. Narcissa's face darkened. “And then the year after, you can be ready to do it with me.”

Andromeda gave the girl a small smile that held far too much adoration and awe for Anna’s comfort. It made her wonder where exactly the two had gone wrong. In the books, Bellatrix had held so much  _ loathing _ for her younger sister and it had been returned in equal amounts. What had happened, in the years between the books and now, that had caused such a rift?

Would marrying a muggle-born be so detrimental to their relationship? 

“I have received confirmation that Charis will be coming with Callidora but I haven’t heard from Alphard yet,” Arcturus said gravely as if it was a matter of life and death. His gaze flickered to Pollux, who stared back with an obstinate gaze, his eyes flickering with irritation. “Pollux, have you heard from your wayward son, perchance?” 

“Alphard last sent a letter in late August, when he was still around Asia.” The woman sighed before Pollux could say anything, nearing fond. “I’ll give him a good tongue-lashing if he doesn’t turn up for the rites, though. He didn’t come last year either, did he, Pollux?”

Pollux let out a strained huff. “Turned up two days after the solstice. A lot of good that was.”

The woman's face turned into a sneer. “I almost thought that he mixed with the muggle traditions, the heartbreak I felt.”

“Is it worse than the heartbreak that he forgot about the family, Irma?” Said Arcturus blithely, staring at the woman with a steely gaze. 

Irma gave him a deliciously sweet smile. “We all know about children forgetting about the family. Tell me, has Lucretia come by recently? I  _ do  _ miss her company.”

Anna could  _ hear _ his teeth grinding together. 

“Regardless,” Orion said quickly. “The only reason we’re at the Black Manor instead of Ridgeway or Grimmauld is for one reason.”

Most of the room turned their eyes on Anna. Apart from the gathered crowd, Walburga had turned to Druella, both ladies smiling at each other whilst hiding knives behind their backs, and sitting with tea in one hand and deadly gossip in the other. Cygnus looked uncomfortable between the two, ready to make a run for the door.

“Come, Cygnus, see your own daughter,” Pollux beckoned. 

“His fourth,” Arcturus smirked, passing a glance with Pollux that looked deathly poisonous. “Is it true that Druella will never have another? What a shame.”

In the background, Anna could see the woman in question tighten her grip around a teacup. Walburga looked like a baying beast, teeth flashing with new information as Druella bared her own right back. Cygnus stood up jerkily, coming to stand behind the men with great relief.

She felt like an animal on display as Sirius was pulled back to sit fully in Narcissa’s tiny lap, even though he looked on the verge of tears at being removed from his new plaything. The men all gave her cursory looks, eyes flashing with potential schemes that would never involve her consent, staying far enough away that Anna was merely observed. Only Irma approached her.

Irma's own dark hair, browner than the usual black, fell in ringlets down her back and she omitted warmth unnaturally. Sirius clapped his hands, overjoyed at someone approaching him who wasn’t Narcissa and went to greet her with a degree of cheer Anna hadn’t received. He was lifted up speedily by Andromeda who took him off the younger girls lap, much to his silent displeasure. 

“You  _ are  _ a dear,” Irma murmured, a hand stroking Anna's cheek. “My Walburga looked like you when she was a babe. You’re eyes though, entirely Rosier blood there, like little Andromeda when she was your age. Hmph, not half-bad. My son has pretty daughters, at the very least.”

Cygnus flushed in the background.

“Don’t smother her,” Pollux said, unheeding his son. “You did it to all of them and every single one of them bawled after.”

Arcturus took the opening gleefully. “I’d presume that might just be her personality, cousin.”

Orion patted Cygnus on the arm sympathetically. 

“See,” Irma puffed up, giving the two men a glance as a smile came onto Anna’s face unwittingly. “ _ One _ of them doesn’t mind.”

“A low record.” Pollux dismissed blithely. “I might just agree with my  _ dearest _ cousin on this one, wife.”

“You flatter me,” Arcturus said dryly.

_ What the everloving fuck has my life come to _ , Anna thought as she observed the room. Sirius was clawing at Bellatrix, who looked utterly repulsed but was trying to sit still. Andromeda was holding him tightly, crinkling the robes he had on but she seemed far too smiley to restrain him properly. The two most common features in his life were chatting -  _ gossiping _ , her mind reminded her - over tea -  _ again _ \- and the few people in charge were snarking away happily.

Seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi! This one was especially long and whilst I've yet to determine whether or not to expand on Yule in Anna's POV, I've definitely been considering Narcissa POV again! It's interesting to write from the perspective of someone who knows most, if not all, of peoples darkest deepest secrets, especially at such a young age.
> 
> But after the 'Yule' section, I'm definitely going ahead with the timing. The first few chapters are more introductory and whilst there are far more Blacks, these are the 'main' ones, so to say. Lucretia - she's mentioned her briefly - prefers not to associate with her family much, Cassiopeia is more of an insane shut away who drops in at random times, Alphard is travelling for most of the fic and Dorea isn't 'disowned' but is definitely not welcome. The rest are either dead or disowned. 
> 
> A/N 2: The next update will either be Sunday or Monday. I'll write it up on Saturday and then edit it on Sunday, depending. All my Christmas exams are over, so I have much more time on my hands!


	6. Narcissa II

Narcissa watched her Aunt Walburga and Mother sweep out of the room with both simmering relief and rising apprehension. They imitated every thought as they left, louder, as if it would spread their scorn across the two-metre gap separating them. She had hoped, vainly, that her mother might have restrained herself if only for Narcissa’s sake. She was wrong.

Sirius squirmed between them, spelt silent by her Aunt’s hand. It had become almost a tradition for him. To her knowledge - and others - neither of her or her two sisters had required the same treatment to keep them silent and Ursa was quiet enough to rival even Bellatrix in the cradle. Spying on those memories, however willing or not, was rather interesting to see her oldest, brashest sister lie peaceful for once.

Ursa was looking with her identical, blank expression that she always had as she lay in Mother’s arms. Narcissa offered her a smile, even if she was as quiet as the grave, in more her comfort than her sisters.

( _ -al)  _ Uncle Arcturus was spilling over the edges, just a bit, and Narcissa resisted the urge to tell him his shields were failing. 

To be frank, Narcissa found even Orion’s occlumency shields flabby to her own, powerful and natural legilimency. There wasn’t much to be done about it, though, her Mother had explained one day. Unless a person studied day and night or experienced a frequent barrage of mind magic every few days or so, nobody would step in Narcissa’s way beyond being a minor nuisance. 

It made being around Ursa all the better. Someone who could match her, even if she wasn’t as sensitive to the magic around her as Narcissa was, in power. If Bellatrix was the firestorm- you could taste it on your tongue, smoke and ash cloying in your mouth, every time she stirred the air - and Andromeda was the stable stone that you could build your house upon, Ursa was the agile breeze that could -  _ would _ \- become a hurricane with time. 

Narcissa personally thought her magic was like a river, flooding from the never-ending pool of magical energy that dwelled within her, but she  _ could _ be biased. 

“Look at how you’ve grown!” Said Grandmother Irma faux brightly. There was always the undercurrent of unruffled steel in her mood that had Narcissa keeping her distance. “You’ll be taller than me one day, Bellatrix.”

“Like that’s hard to do.” Uncle Arcturus muttered under his breath.

Technically, Arcturus was their first cousin twice removed, but it was much easier to simply call him Uncle. Narcissa  _ also _ knew that Grandfather Pollux simply wanted to rankle him rather than use the term as an endearment. 

Bellatrix stared back at their cooing grandmother blankly. 

“I do wonder how your studies are progressing. It’s only proper that a witch has training before Hogwarts. I received word that Andromeda was learning several languages, what was it?” Irma made a show of thinking, even though she had memorised every detail on the girl. “ Français , Deutsch and-”

Arcturus interrupted her with a scoff. Pollux aimed a steady glare at his back. “Come now, woman, we aren’t here to talk teaching. I’m sure Pollux’s granddaughters are being taught by the finest tutors of the age. Shouldn’t we get onto…  _ important _ matters?”

The adults in the room froze. 

( _ a sigil, a dead family sigil, hanging on the wall - the ministry asks my opinion as the patriarch - the snake that hisses of purity - what he asks, my debt that my - unreasonable - what matter more, the family or - the sick scent of illness hanging in a room of unfathomable darkness - I have powers beyond even you, old friend - a glint of red, green and silver ) _

The blurring whirl of memories and words stilled, as the room snapped into focus. 

“Of course, cousin.” Pollux regarded Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda with a careful eye. “Go to your playroom, now, dear girls. The adults have discussions to hold.”

“Shouldn’t Walburga be here?” Orion murmured, playing absently with a series of swinging spheres.

Cygnus nodded in agreement. “If we are to talk on family matters -”  _ (a ring upon a finger - vows meant but not kept)  _ “- we should have all the family here.”

( _ a delicate brush sifting through dark hair, eyes lined with dark makeup and a kiss on the cheek - a proposition-) _

Grandfather and Uncle Arcturus swapped a gaze that, for once, was neither spiteful nor scornful nor balefully hateful and Pollux ended their civil, silent discussion with a swift nod of his head. “Bellatrix, girl, flag an elf down when your out. Close the doors behind you, tightly. You know how to activate the house runes?”

A smile spread across her face and Bellatrix nodded smugly. “Father showed me.”

Her face fell when Grandfather turned away dismissively, the tea tray being long taken away by elves as he sat where Narcissa’s mother and aunt had been before. Irma took the seat beside the very large window that drapery was stitched in gold and silver, shifting to allow Arcturus to sit stiffly beside her. 

A hand took her own, pulling her up from the sofa which sat all three Black girls. Bellatrix was scheming ( _ a cross scribbled with a ‘y’, the rune-)  _ as she drifted to the door, waiting for Andromeda to catch up. Narcissa was sure that if they weren’t all explicitly ordered to leave, her sisters would have rushed out without her.  _ Catch up, Cissy _ , Bellatrix had laughed one day, scraping through the halls with a spare wand in hand,  _ we’ll leave you behind! _

Narcissa dutifully accompanied her elder sister, who was already starting a conversation with Bellatrix, letting her hand fall wayside as the two slipped out the door. Her eldest sister stood to the side of the double doors, letting them close as she called out. “Elf!”

A crack in the air and a sullen, greying elf appeared in front of her eldest sister, bowing low when it caught sight of her sister’s disdainful glare. Its nose scraped the floorboards and its ears flopped forward, lined with wisps of white hair. Bellatrix was contemplating kicking the poor thing and Narcissa went to intervene - injured servants were poor servants, getting them to beat themselves based on their measurement was far better at both judging loyalty and keeping eligible to work, Father said- but Bellatrix made no way to move apart from crossing her arms.

She looked very much like a Walburga in miniature.

“Get my aunt and mother, won’t you?” Bellatrix sneered. It was an ugly thing on somebody like Bella, Narcissa thought with a frown. “My grandfather and uncle are talking on ‘family matters’ before dinner.”

The elf bowed even lower, but there was no tremble in his arms and no shaking in his legs, unlike the elf in the nursery. “Of course, Miss Bellatrix.”

“Good.” Bellatrix nodded smugly but the elf had snapped away with a  _ crack _ .

It certainly didn’t take long for her mother and aunt to come hurrying back to the sitting room, looking unruffled and poised. There was an undercurrent to them that spoke of urgency, of topics that needed addressing as Narcissa’s mother drifted by them with keen eyes. They were all treated with attentive inspections, searching for any sign of upset or hurt.

It was all pointless. Narcissa knew that her mother had been raised differently than a Black would be raised, being born a Rosier but - ( _ a hand on her cheek, a ruffle of hair, ‘i care for you’ told in so many ways-) _ \- she kept strictly to the lines drawn centuries ago. They would be scorned for their weakness and ignored for their strength - until they were of an age that it was important.

Bellatrix brimmed with excitement, all but vibrating as she closed the heavy wooden doors behind the two women. They shut with a heavy thud. Andromeda jolted beside Narcissa, who had dug her nails into the soft flesh of her hands.

Her eldest sister knelt beside the corner of the wooden doorway, hands dusty and holding a piece of broken chalk as she drew over a faint scar on the dark door. 

“You’re supposed to cross it with a ‘y’,” Narcissa added, trying to be helpful.

Her sister’s face darkened. “I  _ know _ , Cissy. Do you want to hear them or not, dummy?”

“We’re not allowed to,” Andromeda said softly, but her eyes were tracking the engraved wood decorations to crack in the door, where tiny sounds echoed out every other second. Narcissa would find no ally in her. “What if we get caught?”

Bellatrix shrugged, her curls falling over her shoulder. “We won’t.”

_ You always do _ , was on the tip of her tongue. Be it by her Aunt Rosetta - who was, currently, still running around Egypt if her mother’s complaints were to be believed or by their parents. But it stuck, trying to converse the conflicting paths of interest and trepidation.

It didn’t matter what her choice was, because only one person - two if you push it, and Bella’s was always pushing the limits of anything she felt - could fit by the crack in the door. Bellatrix got there first, smiling with triumph and  _ eager _ and Andromeda had followed her, like a dog would a master, standing at an awkward angle with unspoken inquisitiveness written on her face.

_ (“-follow madmen in their false conquests?! We did that for a self-proclaimed king, a millennia ago, and it brought us to our knees- _

_ “That was for  _ his  _ cause, this is a shared one-” _

_ “-egardless of whether we want to, we have to, I owe him a debt. A heavy one. If he calls upon our family for reinforcements-” _

_ “-pay for your son’s folly, do you understand me-” _

_ “I am the head of this family, you will do-” _

_ “-quiet, the adults are talking-”) _

It was easier, Narcissa felt, to listen instead of watch. It was being tuned into radio you didn’t desire to have, nor own, nor paid for but it was far better than watching the world disappear beneath your feet and replaced with a new one.

“A Dark Lord rising,” Bellatrix said, eyes wide with awe. “Powerful, too.”

But none of the two followed her hero-worship. “Bella,” Andromeda said, hesitantly. “I think Grandfather’s right. We all  _ know _ that muggles are scum but… isn’t it easier to just let them play about in their muck? Grindewald had the same idea, Bella, and look what happened to him-”

“What, are you a  _ blood traitor  _ now?” Narcissa flinched back at her harsh tone.

“No, Bella.” Andromeda placated. “I’m just saying, be  _ careful _ .”

“Aren’t I always?” Bellatrix preened under an invisible gaze.  Narcissa watched a wedge form between her sisters - one trying to forge a legacy and another a place to  _ live _ . Bellatrix had that look in her eye, that look that promised fear in the form of well-placed cow liver and curses behind a corner ( _ glory-fame- his  _ best  _ lieutenant _ ), that offered nothing but retribution. Narcissa wondered, distantly, if she had always looked like that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is lasting longer than I thought it would, to be frank. I'm not sure on whether or not to end it off here or to continue on to the dinner portion (in Narcissa POV). In truth, it would be nothing more than snark with little substance, imo, but if anybody is interested in seeing that I wouldn't mind writing it! 
> 
> This chapter seems kind of short, but I didn't want to pack too much into a singular chapter. 
> 
> A/N2: Thanks for reading and all the comments you leave! They really do make my day, even if it sounds cheesy saying that. I'm going to start spreading the updates over a 2-3 day schedule but it depends on the content and chapter-length! Next update should be on Tuesday but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯.


	7. Anna V

Whatever had occurred during Yule had been substantial enough to put even Druella on edge.

Anna prided herself on her ability - although she was sure it was out shadowed by the pureblood Blacks around her - to read people. Druella had been a composed person in the amount of time that Anna had spent with her; her anger encrusted with ice, her affection tainted with steel, her sorrow upright with beams of iron. But now there was an air around her, fading as the days past, that kept her on her toes.

None of the other Black sisters had missed it either. Bellatrix kept giving her mother looks that Anna couldn’t pin down and Andromeda stared up at her with wide eyes when her back was turned. Perhaps it was Narcissa who was the most open about her worry as she clung tighter to her mother’s scarlet skirts, trying to hide beneath her courtesies. 

Whatever it was, however, Narcissa wouldn’t confide it in Anna. Not in this, apparently.

It didn’t stop the girl from spilling the daily going-on to her, the Tales of Beedle and Bard open on her lap as she read not from the stories of the book but rather the gossip of the day. Anna delighted in the little excitement she could glean from them.

Whilst Druella took Anna with her on her daily duties - tending to the books of the house, checking in on the house elves and organising the sister’s education with a governess - but not on the trips to tea with Walburga or with the various, unnamed ladies who Anna only knew about due to offhand comments. It left her trapped on entertainment. 

“Bellatrix keeps bragging about the Yule rites,” Narcissa complained to her. “Not to Andromeda, of course, just to me.”

_ Yule rites _ , she had pondered curiously. The idea had been played with, even Anna had toyed with the concept of it, but what was the true version of it like?

“I threatened to tell mother, of course, but she laughed in my face.” 

_ How very unlike her _ , Anna had snarked mentally.

“So, I’m putting snakes in her bed. Let’s see her talk her way out of  _ this _ one.”

Anna would’ve raised her eyebrows in mild surprise if there was motivation. It was unlike Narcissa to be so petty, often resorting to publicly outing her eldest sister to their parents. But, one day, she would be Narcissa Malfoy who undermined Voldemort in a play to save her son, so she would have to learn her cunning someplace. 

The days moved on past Yule, that most special day. She found herself growing with at a rate that she could remember on the few babies she had seen on regular basis. Anna had kept an eye on the conversation about Sirius’ accomplishments since she could remember him being mentioned and tried to plan in advance but as days and nights passed, monotonous and marvellous in equal amounts Anna lost a definite track of the days. 

She assumed that Yule was on the 25th, like Christmas, then the rites had been on the 27th. But they hadn’t been. Anna had overheard Druella’s organised murmurs on pain of setting up a brunch on the 27th and, considering it had been after the rites, Anna’s shambling semblance of time was shattered.

With that in mind, she reordered how the basic steps should go. 

_ Fuck it,  _ Anna had thought, her patience finally beginning to fray,  _ who cares what they think on how odd it is? I’m driving myself insane sitting here _ .

Anna sat herself up, trying to heave with the effort. Quiet exercise in the dead of night -  _ exercise  _ was a strong word, perhaps practice might have been better - had strengthened her muscles to a point that she felt more able to move. Druella hadn’t so much as blinked, and for some reason, Anna felt mightily disappointed, but she  _ did _ cast a smile that rippled with pride before turning her attentions to the thick book of numbers - from what she could glean- again.

“Isn’t she too young for that?” Narcissa had piped up from where she was sitting, her skirt gathered around her. It was a rare occasion that Druella allowed one of her children to sit with her whilst she worked. It was only Narcissa’s tutor who had come down with a nasty case of the Mumblemumps, leaving her youngest daughter without a caretaker for the afternoon, that had given her permittance to sit in Druella’s study.

Druella merely hummed noncommittally, disinterested. “Dear, your sister was talking before she was nine months old. Sirius was walking as soon as he could stand without help. If any magical child wasn’t completing milestones before the estimated time, or so help us, a pureblood scion, then there would be a probable cause for concern.”

Narcissa simply peered at Anna with large, silver eyes. “It’s normal, then?”

“Yes, Narcissa. You need to learn not to listen to muggle nonsense.” 

“Oh, Andy told me.” The girl replied, turning back to her dolls when her curiosity was sated. 

Druella sighed irritably. “I need to have a talk to that girl about running down with the filth down the way.”

“She hasn’t been in a while.” Narcissa shrugged, pretending to pour tea for her dolls. False steam rose from the flowery painted cups. “Andy prefers to stay with Bella when she practices her casting.”

“Mmm.” With the distant look in her eyes that only appeared when she worked, Druella turned back to the thick books. “Good.”

Whatever  _ that  _ had meant, Anna refused to ponder it, it was an assured green light. She moved on from trying to hold her neck up to trying to speak, sounding out sounds one by one. Her mouth felt numb with ice when she spoke and her tongue was heavy and unusable in her mouth. More than once, she had bitten it on accident.

Anna was grateful to not have teeth, for once, but the ache that had begun in her gums spoke of a new, fresher agony that wasn’t spending more time with Narcissa’s beloved mother. 

She started with the vowels, sounding out  _ ah _ , then  _ oh _ , then  _ ee _ , then _e_ _ i _ , the  _ ou _ , then  _ y _ for good measure because the letter was always  _ so  _ neglected, in Anna’s opinion. The pain of relearning to speak reminded her of the time she spent learning German. The fluency of the language had left her some years ago but holding a meagre conversation in the tongue would be no hard feat.

When she got the hold of basic vowels and a rudimentary grasp on the rest, Anna tried her first word. “Mam.” She managed to wrangle out, feeling both disappointed in her failure to words and alight with her success to sound tangible. “Mamm. Ma.”

Singular letters were easy, words were harder.

But the days only got better after as she found out the date the next morning. _How funny_ , Anna mused, feeling strangely hazy, _that the date is a luxury to me_.

Druella had taken a fancy of Anna sitting in the straight-backed, wooden highchair at the family table. On most occasions, Cygnus was absent and the sisters argued and bickered and snatched at each other. On the days that he was present, they surrendered themselves to quiet glares and kicks beneath the table. This mourning, he was hungover, heavy, dark bags beneath his eyes and his curly mop of hair twisting around his eyes. His robes were twisted around his form, wrinkled and coloured with a rich merlot.

“Walburga just had her boy,” Druella informed him airily, looking unfazed at her husband's boorish appearance. The woman was his opposite, with her pale, blonde hair tied into a french twist and wore a robe of sea green and silver. “I received Arcturus announcement this morning.”

Cygnus didn’t move from where he blinked blearily into his eggs. “When?”

“Three days ago, on the 19th of March.” Druella gave him an icy smile that shone with disapproval. Anna had come to learn that a hungover Cygnus was not an unusual sight but his wife’s disdain grew stronger with every sight of him. “Born just shy of the equinox. Orion has named him Regulus, after his _beloved_ uncle.”

“ _ Him, _ beloved?” Cygnus snorted under his breath. It was only the proximity to the couple that kept Anna conscious of the conversation. Across the table, Narcissa ducked her head. “Regulus was a spiteful little man with too much ambition. Pity the child, more like.”

“I’d pity anyone with Walburga for a mother,” Druella murmured.

“She’d do the same for you, I’d wager.”  The man hummed, his hand twisted between his curls, the dark strands a stark difference between the pale skin. 

Druella eyed his hand with wary distaste. “Ask the house elves for pain relief if you are so agonised. Stop letting the children see your pathetic state.”

_ Stop letting  _ me  _ see your current state _ , went unsaid.

Cygnus gave her a look that sat stiffly on his refined features. Druella refused to meet his gaze or so much as look at his face, turning obstinately toward the subtly snickering girls. Anna couldn’t decide what was transpiring between them. The two had an odd relationship with each other. One moment, Druella would be offering a hand to help and the next, she was glaring steely daggers into his skull. 

Did she care for him like a wife did a husband? Anna could see that she had once, see it in the tiredness of her movements and the sorrow at the corners of her eyes, mourning what they had been. What had they been? Did they marry on their own accord? Cygnus was the youngest son of the younger line, not with a priority to marry high.

Cygnus swallowed audibly at his wife's performed indifference. “Tell me of Rosetta.”

“She is faring well in Egypt.” A true, small smile graced Druella’s face. “Rose writes to me on odd occasions. She uses the same way of delivery that Melania used when she lived. Did she learn it from her?”

“Melania was quite a well-taught runes master. Her mother was a Rosier too if I remember correctly.”

“It’s our one good trait, apparently.” Druella shrugged languidly but there was a tenseness to her shoulders that made Anna want to frown. “Rose is going down the same passages that your cousin went down once. I worry about her. Melania barely escaped with her life.”

Cygnus cast her a solemn stare that went overlooked. “It was a one time mistake, Arcturus was sure of it.”

But there was worry in Druella’s eyes that wouldn’t be capped by the sureness of the patriarch. Her hand tightened around the thin, painted handle of the teacup but her knuckles didn’t whiten and her arm stayed still. “Of course,” Druella said smoothly, shakily. “Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Sorry for such a short chapter! I would have written more but it would have taken an extra day to get done. I found myself with an awful case of writer's block and procrastination, which is all my fault, to be honest. I'm trying to bridge across the larger targets whilst making true characters instead of cliches. 
> 
> A/N 2: Thank you all. Seriously. You never know how somebody feels one day but opening up notif to see a comment or kudos really makes my day.


	8. Anna VI

Anna was stumbling around the living room on shaking legs when the news came in. 

“Come here, Ursa!” Narcissa beckoned her eagerly. To the side, Bellatrix was casting lazy glances between the book on her lap and her youngest sibling. For once, the young witch had an expectant look on her face instead of painted disdain.

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. “She’s not a dog, Cissa.”

Narcissa made a face out of her sister’s eyesight, arms still open and waiting as Anna tried to balance herself. Her legs were trembling like she had run a ten-mile marathon, and she felt like a newborn foal trying to walk for the first time. Every footstep was another mile run, another begged breath took to kept her standing, and the mountain hadn’t been climbed yet. She felt a pang of sympathy for the babies who looked so frustrated trying to walk.

It was a frustrating task. Getting herself on her feet was a task easier than expected, staying on two feet without support posed little challenge. It was too  _ easy _ , Anna reflected bitterly, feeling a rise of unwanted disappointment. Walking was another monster to tackle completely. She couldn’t claim to be the most  _ graceful  _ person but she had had decent balance, for someone who could trip over thin air.

Now, she’s stuck trying to toddle into a girl of five’s (or six, Anna bites the inside of her lip, trying to remember) arms. It’s  _ beyond _ humiliating, beyond the frustration that wells behind her carefully constructed emotional walls, beyond the wilted comfort of learning talking before envisioned. 

Bellatrix  _ tch _ ed, “Look, now you’re making her frustrated, Cissy.” Narcissa wrinkled her nose at the nickname as the elder girl slipped off the sofa, landing soundly on the floor, and knelt before Anna some few metres away. “Come, now.” She said, in a strict, sound voice. “I’ll wait.”

“She’s done it before,” Narcissa muttered forlornly, padding away to stand behind Bellatrix. 

One foot after another, without the cawing optimistic hope of Narcissa’s voice in her ears, Anna fell into Bellatrix’s arms, truly exhausted for the first time since… since she could remember in this life. It was very strange to be held in the witches arms, who was still a child herself. Anna let herself be lifted by the witch willingly, far too tired to try anything else.

The lace of her dress scratched against her cheek, not unpleasantly, and her pale skin radiated a warmth that smelt of smoke. It was very unlike the smooth silk of Druella’s robes and the lukewarm touch of her fingertips or the burning heat of Narcissa and the scent of lavender that fell off in waves. Almost unwittingly, Anna leaned into the warmth of the would-be psychotic murderer. 

“Why’d she come to you?” Narcissa peered down at Anna. Her grey eyes glittered with unspoken emotion and for once, Anna wished to be Legilimens who could see someone’s thoughts, someone’s feelings, with a singular blink. “Why not me?”

Bellatrix set her down on the sofa’s jarring cool leather, which Anna reluctantly slumped against. She clicked her tongue, disdainful. “Because, itty bitty Cissy, some things need  _ time _ . A watched cauldron never boils.”

Narcissa’s face scrunched into one of annoyance. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s true though, isn’t it?” Bellatrix shrugged, staring down at her sister indifferently, a cruel gleam entering her eye. “Although, you’re being  _ replaced  _ now, aren’t you? Ursa seems to take everybody’s attention.”

“She’s my sister, she takes my attention  _ too _ .” The younger witch huffed, turning away from her with a swish of her skirts, unfazed. “Why should I be jealous? I apparently did the same thing. We’re not all  _ you _ , Bella.”

There was no accusing vigour in her tone, only an unkind statement of fact but Bellatrix recoiled anyway as if she had been hit. The young witch was visually torn between anger and confusion, staring at the miffed, but not truly  _ angry  _ if her tone was anything to go by, child who had dropped one of her biggest - or so Anna was assuming - insecurities on her. 

Before any reasonable reactions could occur, Andromeda bounded into the sitting room her face a picture of pale fear. Her lip quivered, her brown eyes gleaming with unshed tears as she made her way over to Bellatrix hurriedly. “Mother wants to see you quick, Bella.” She cast her worried gaze to Narcissa as if realising she was there. “Both of you.”

“Couldn’t she have sent an elf?” Bellatrix grumbled uncooperatively. “It’s not hard to do. Just a click of your fingers, give an order and they go-”

Narcissa, who had been staring at Andromeda intently for a very long time, looked between her sisters and Anna. “What about Ursa?”

“I’ll take her.” Andromeda moved to pick Anna up.

Bellatrix stopped her with an arm. “I’ll do it, Andy.” She grumbled. “You carried Narcissa _once_. You’ll drop her.”

“Come on.” If Andromeda was offended, she didn’t show it. Perhaps it was the urgency that she carried, or the common remarks and rebukes had grown weak against the numerous verbal sneers she endured each day. “We don’t have long, mother says.”

Narcissa nodded tightly in agreement.

“Well, fine.” Anna was handled with a strangely gentle touch and she slumped against the sturdy wall that was Bellatrix. “Hurry up then, she’s tired. I’d rather not be covered in baby drool.”

And so, they ventured through the small sitting room that had held host to the two black sisters and a reluctant Anna. Up the stairs that led to a main, twisting corridor that was lined with sleeping ancestors. Narcissa greeted one of the aware portraits only to be hurried on by the lined, sharp-eyed man. Andromeda stopped abruptly in front of a door, decorated with silver and gold. 

“You said Mother wanted us.” Bellatrix hissed, looking at the door. “Not Aunt Rosetta. And why here? Can’t she meet us in the dining room or such?”

Andromeda pushed the door open, ignoring the hissed demands for answers from Bellatrix firmly. Narcissa shoved passed her and disappeared into the dark, gloomy corners of the room, looking on the verge of tears as she took in what neither Anna nor Bellatrix could see.

“Ah, is that my troublemaking nieces?” A voice, low and aching, but one Anna recognized faintly.  _ Rosetta _ , she thought, feeling out-of-place for a moment. “Come in, greet your beloved Aunt.”

Upon an embroidered pillow, blonde hair was splayed out upon the white fabric. It was cut to her shoulder and a part of it still sizzled merrily with blue and yellow flames. The left side of her face was covered in bandages that wept red readily, mourning for what would be lost. Her entire left side was hidden beneath a pale, yellow fabric and her right was unmoving, although Druella was clinging to her only visible hand with a desperation that resulted in late-night deals beneath the eyes of the law. 

“What happened?” Bellatrix asked but her voice was weak. She had stopped in the doorway, her grip tightening around Anna uncomfortably. 

“What your Melania attempted.” Rosetta tried to shrug but her left shoulder stood still and her right moved so slowly it might’ve well not at all. Druella looked like she was about to burst into tears, her icy mask of perfection laid to waste at the door. Rosetta let out a wispy sigh. “I failed.”

Druella ran a hand through her hair, tenderly. “I warned you.” She whispered, through clenched teeth and broken breath, looking more injured than the wounded woman. “I told you, Rosie-”

“Ah, you’re my older sister, when have I ever listened to what you told me to do?” Rosetta smiled.

Druella cast an eye to the three, huddled Black girls with a frantic gaze. “You shouldn’t be here. Not at least you-”

“I told Andromeda to gather them, Ella,” Rosetta whispered through a wave of agony. Anna found herself turning away. Turning away from the woman who looked half-burnt to death beneath the copious bandages. But there was no hiding from the stench of burnt flesh that lingered in the room. “One last goodbye, hm?”

“You’re not-” Druella choked. “You’re not  _ dying _ , Rosie.”

At this, Rosetta let out such a despairing laugh that Anna felt straight to her bones. It rung like church bells during a funeral, made of mourning and sorrow. “Yes, I am,” Rosetta said, grinning all the while. “Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m not.” 

Druella looked away, digging her gaze into the yellow of the bedsheets with such despair Anna had never felt from a person before, never imagined it could exist. Her few family members that kicked it before her own, unfortunate, demise were sparse and of little renown to her. “Come here, girls.” Rosetta beckoned them in a weak voice.

Narcissa approached her first, wary and shaken, her skin an ashen grey, as she took a spot beside Druella’s weeping visage. A hand rested on her arm as her large, grey eyes blinked at the blonde with unshed tears hidden in them. Anna frowned at the silent tears that rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t want you to go.”

A hand curled around Narcissa’s shoulders as Andromeda hugged her sister tight, burying her face in her sister’s blonde curls as if refusing to see Rosetta would make it any less real. Rosetta gave her a waning, pained smile. “I know.”

Druella gave a tight sob, burying her face in hands.

“They can’t do anything?” Bellatrix asked lowly, frothing with anger, shifting Anna on her hip. “The healers we employ are of the highest degree. Otherwise, why do we keep them around?”

“I told you to ask-” Druella dug her sister with a watery glare, her hands clenched around a silken handkerchief. Anna felt an unwelcome tightness rise in her chest at seeing the older woman undone. It reminded her, painfully, of the last blonde she had seen weeping.

“Hush now, sister,” Rosetta murmured in comforting tones, a hand running across the planes of her sister’s cheek. “No, Bellatrix. This is a curse beyond their understanding. Only a highly experience curse-breaker, beyond even my own power, could help me now.”

“Then find one!” Bellatrix demanded.

“I tried.” Druella clenched her sisters hand tightly. “I tried.”

Anna was remarkably perturbed.  _ Isn’t bargaining a stage of grief? _ She thought, thinking back,  _ it’s… denial first. First anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. _ She cast her mind back to a few moments before when Bellatrix had stopped so suddenly as if wrenched by a shock.  _ I wonder _ …

“But there has to be something?” Bellatrix asked, sounding like the desperate child she pretended she wasn’t. “You can’t just…”

Rosetta patted Narcissa weakly, whispering something in low tones to the two girls. Druella nodded, wiping the tears beneath her eyes with shaky hands and planted a watery kiss on both girls cheeks. “Come here, Bellatrix. Andromeda-”

“Of course.” Andromeda reached for Anna, her hands delicate as Bellatrix handed her over. She smiled, thin and watery, and spoke quietly. “We’ll have fun together, won’t we, Ella?”

“Ella?” Narcissa murmured.

“Her middle name is Elladora and you can’t make a nickname out of Ursa.” Andromeda summed up, opening the door with a spare hand. “I wouldn’t use it in front of Mother, though. That’s just…”

“Something Bellatrix would do?” Narcissa added helpfully but the mood didn't rise.

All of them took one last look at other trio, Druella wiping her tears beside Rosetta bedside as they both talked in low voices. Bellatrix had their back to them, her face turned away as she sat on the yellow sheets. Andromeda closed the door noiselessly. “Yes, something Bellatrix would do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, people who are reading!! This chapter wasn't as plot-heavy as the rest but it's roughly the amount I'd write for a singular one and to be honest, I didn't expect it to be so long. I'd do more, but I'm trying to keep to a limited 4-5 pages on google docs. It helps me both write faster, makes editing less boring and keep inspired. There's only one exception so far and it's a pretty major one (the yule chapters) so...
> 
> A/N 2: Thanks for reading! You guys always make my day! :) Hope to see you next chapter which will be, before Christmas. Huh, how that snuck up on me. I can't promise any special Christmas chapter but the next one should be out just before it! Have a nice holiday! :)))


	9. Anna VII

Anna hadn’t stuck around - or, to be precise, been  _ allowed  _ to - to see the last of Rosetta. Narcissa and Andromeda had camped down in the room they’d been in before, both girls with watery eyes and withheld tears, sniffling. Bellatrix had been right on one account, though. It was only with discreet manoeuvring that Anna hadn’t toppled from her arms and onto the floor below. 

An hour or so later, Bellatrix had joined them. Her eyes were ringed red and her cheeks were flushed, faded stains reached from the corners of her eyes down to the apex of her chin. She sniffled awkwardly at the doorway but neither of her sisters said a word against her. “Mother doesn’t want any visitors.” She announced in a weak imitation of her haughtiness.

“Bella…” Andromeda sighed. Her green and lemon skirts were splayed around her as she sat on the floor, the bright colours a jarring contrast to the damp mood, holding Narcissa close. “Come here.”

For a moment, Anna imagined that a flash of hesitation went over Bellatrix before the girl stalked into the room with the proud and condescending demeanour that was typical of her. There was a space where her sneer would be and a sullen silence where her sharp remarks would spill but there was no lack of steel in her spine. Bellatrix sat herself down beside Andromeda but she didn’t lean into the girl’s offer of comfort nor turn away. 

Andromeda murmured something under her breath that Anna couldn’t catch from where she sat on the sofa, reluctantly chewing on a teething toy that soothed the pain that had began to spread its wretched tendrils through her gums. Bellatrix hissed something back, eyes narrowed with hurt pride but she placed a stiff arm around her sister’s shoulders. Andromeda gave her a small smile and kept up a conversation that Anna could only see by the movement of their lips.

Whatever they talked on, Narcissa was impassive.

Or perhaps just asleep, Anna mused. Anna was tired enough - trying to walk was physically draining and just watching the recent Black family drama ( _ or _ , she thought,  _ Rosier family drama _ ) was emotionally taxing. It would be, to anyone. 

With a start, Bellatrix shot up as the door opened, lurching away from Andromeda’s loose grip like it had burned her. If the girl in question was offended, she made no obvious showmanship of it. Narcissa merely shifted in Andromeda’s grip, hands tightening in the soft fabric of her skirts. 

“There you are,” Cygnus noted coolly, stepping into the room with unnaturally light footsteps. “I take it you heard from your mother…?”

“Aunt Rose-” (“Aunt  _ Rosetta _ ,” Andromeda corrected in a murmur) “-called us up. One last goodbye.” Bellatrix told him, her silver eyes damp. It was abnormal to see on someone who was always alight with the sheer willpower contained within them. Cygnus’ jaw tightened. “Will she be down for supper?”

“That’s very unlikely, Bellatrix,” Cygnus remarked stiltedly, casting his eyes over the three huddled girls. “Come, where is your youngest sister?”

And that was how Anna found herself being pawned off to Cygnus. 

She didn’t have the energy to fight - she hadn’t fought much, not in this life, unless you were counting that incident with that monstrous contraption Druella had tried to pass as a dress. Cygnus reminded her very much of Narcissa, in the quiet way he held himself and his slight build, but he was a fully-grown adult and father four-times over. His hands weren’t shaky when he lifted her and when he settled her on his hip, there was little to no wiggle room.

He didn’t speak when he brought her up to the nursery. Anna had never thought of the light chatter of either the sisters or Druella as anything more than background noise. It made a stark difference when all she heard was the  _ click _ of shoes against the wood and the rustle of fabric.

A snap of his fingers. “Bring my daughters their dinner where they’re currently situated.” He ordered. There was a pause as a light crack swished through the air. Cygnus sniffed. “Elves, I tell you, girl. Wretched things, but adept at following orders.”

For one abrupt moment, she could see the family resemblance between the siblings.

Where Walburga was a force of nature, a battering ram - not unlike Bellatrix - Cygnus was the lockpick that unlocked the door, ripping through your house like a steely breeze. One made a grand statement of their being there and the other simply never told at all. In the throes of her mind, Anna considered that Cygnus would have made a splendid thief if he wasn’t a Black.

The door to the nursery was already open when they arrived and Cygnus walked like he owned the place, which he probably did. He wasn’t kind with her handling into the crib but he didn’t have the inexperienced hands of Narcissa or the cold, rough care of Walburga when Druella let her hold Anna. He merely was. Druella held her like she was a precious jewel to be coveted and, to her surprise, Anna found Cygnus' treatment preferable to Druella's - albeit heartwarming - swaddling. 

“Sleep, girl.” He spoke, not unkindly, as he turned to face the door again. His robes were loose around him as if put on in a hurry and several locks of hair escaped from his perfected style. “Merlin knows it will be a task to get the rest of them to bed.” He muttered as he left.

The door closed with the same silence the rest of them had.

Anna had always had fanciful dreams, even before all…  _ this _ . Some of them were events she would experience - a glance of a page in a book, a move of someone’s hand, the sun in the window - and some of them were nonsensical but pleasant nonetheless. Gradually nightmares and dreams became one, over a long time, becoming a shrieking, light-hearted contraption worthy of a tasteless horror movie.

This was a newer brand of dream. Where there would be air, even false, was a vast void, where there would the hazy idea of a breeze the feeling on her hands was  _ nothing _ and when she blinked, there was limitless darkness. She ran a dry tongue along cracked lips, rolling her shoulders, feeling more at home than she had in  _ ages _ . This was a body Anna was familiar with but had not inhabited for a good few months. A strained smile passed over her face.

Then, a large eye opened in front of her.

It was red, ringed in green, ringed in blue, ringed in gold. The pupil was scattered instead of whole and the black fragments squirmed in the depths of the colour. The area around it shivered as the eye blinked, a massive thundering thing and Anna was abruptly aware of the tight grip around her waist and the choking song that spilt from its pores.

When she looked closer, a surge of bravery rocketed through her veins, she could see tiny carvings along the ridges of its eyes. The delicate engravings were covered by crusted over wounds, blood long dried and sticky upon its skin and open sores that wept bitterly. Anna fell deaf as a roar swept past her ears and was gone in the next moment. It sounded happy, almost, if such a thing could be.

Anna woke up, blearily, to the comforting ceiling of the nursery and a confining body with limited ability. For once, in the very long and arduous months, she had spent in this world, Anna let out a long breath, of relief and of safety and wondered why panic seemed to surge in her veins.

It was too late. The dream had faded like a bad memory.

* * *

In the days following, Anna saw neither hide nor hair of Druella. Her constant companion instead became a miserable Narcissa who was on the receiving end of reflected thoughts from her siblings. Extended moments spent with Bellatrix made her snappish and increased time spent with Andromeda made her sullen, leaving Narcissa a withdrawn wreck. What was very odd, Anna noted, was after that first day she never cried.

She was very sure that Andromeda did. Her eyes were often ringed red and her cheeks stained. It was with a sudden urgency that Bellatrix had found herself with excess tissues on hand, of course. Anna was less certain about Bellatrix herself, but if the speed that she emptied her pockets of said tissues were too fast for one person, she would never admit it. 

Narcissa informed her, with a desolate air about her, of the funeral in one of her happier moods. “I’m not sure Aunt Walburga is very pleased.” She had frowned. “But, I’ve never seen her, so I’m not sure, really.”

As Rosetta’s niece, Anna had gotten a nice invitation to spend the day in the wet days of spring, standing over the funeral.

It was the first she had seen of Druella, beyond a few snippets. For someone who had looked like a ghost drifting through the halls on the rare, rare occasions that Anna had gleaned of her, she was remarkably put together. There was an emptiness to her warmth, a pale shadow cast across her cheeks, the sat uneasily with her. There were no false smiles but there was no true cheer.  _ Well, I wonder why,  _ something within Anna told her, sarcastically,  _ it’s not like her  _ sister  _ died recently. _

So Anna swallowed her unbidden disquiet and let herself be dressed in a simple, black and white embroidered dress. 

“Is Aunt Rosetta going to be laid in the Rosier mausoleum, Mother?” Andromeda piped up, curiously as they stood in front of the fireplace. Anna realised with a start their way of transport, feeling sick to her stomach already. She could stomach rough rides but the idea of stepping into a fireplace left her feeling uneasy, one could say.

Druella swallowed, grimacing if she was choking on her words. “Yes, as I will be after her passing.”

“Why?” Narcissa asked quietly. She was clinging to Druella’s skirts as subtly as she could, Anna knew. “Why not in the Black crypts with Father?” 

“The body of the deceased can power the family ritual site but  _ only  _ if they’re a member of the family, dear,” Druella murmured, “It’s why you will join your father’s predecessors and I will join mine. Don’t go around telling everyone, now, it’s a pureblood secret.”

“I know.” Narcissa reminded her. It was at times like this when a child's curiosity could be _helpful_ to Anna. The numerous questions she had swirled in her mind and without another prompter, she wasn't going to go around and talk like a fully-grown woman. 

Druella hummed, “You always do.”

Cygnus arrived with Bellatrix, who seemed to be turning from depression to acceptance with a great and heavy reluctance and a small bag of floo powder that he tossed to Druella after taking his pinch. Giving his wife a look, he took his place into the fireplace and with a woosh of green roaring flames and whispered words, he was away.

“Speak clearly,” Druella pushed her youngest daughter forward. Narcissa frowned worriedly. “Don’t hesitate and most importantly, don’t  _ fall _ .”

Narcissa cast her a look that was unreadable to Anna’s eyes but, if she were to guess, it was something around the lines of wary apprehension. Not fear, though, she observed keenly. Druella nudged her on and when Bellatrix went to take a pinch, huffing at finally having grown impatient, she swatted her away.

She stepped into the flames that licked up her skirt but left no scorch marks. It wrapped around the dark fabric of her skirt and twisted around her legs, all shades of emerald, shade and shamrock. For a moment, Anna thought she wouldn’t do it but Narcissa steeled her shoulders and with a yelled location, unlike the silent words of Cygnus, disappeared in a roar of gleaming fire and smoke.

“She took longer than you, Andy,” Bellatrix smirked at her sister, dipping her hand into the bag of floo powder. Andromeda frowned as she copied her sister, the mint coloured powder slipping between her fingers.

Both girls left in a swoosh of similar flame.

Druella scraped her foot along the floor, through the remnants of where the loose powder had fallen to the floor, a frown curling along her face. Two taps of her heel against the floor had it wiped away as if it had never been there, to begin with. She shifted Anna in her arms and murmured a quiet apology as she stepped into the fireplace, soot and ash beginning to paint her skirts a shade of silver. It was pretty, Anna admitted to herself, if you ignored the-

Anna felt her stomach try and turn itself inside out as her body was twisted around. The world was a rollercoaster and she, an unwitting participant. Anna had liked rollercoasters but only when she  _ went on them willingly _ . Being rocketed around and tossed through random loop-de-loops was not what she signed up for-

It stopped suddenly and Druella let out a strained but genuine laugh at her befuddled face.

“I imagine that was my reaction too.” She said, dryly, as she brushed the soot from her skirts. “My mother laughed twice as hard.”

Anna greeted a miserable, weepy day. The overcast crowds were a grey that came close to a mourning black and the little sky visible was thundering. Whilst no water fell, there were certain promises and the lingering threat was shown throughout the cobblestones in form of deep, languid puddles. Druella stepped over them all with experience.

It was a very odd place to have a fireplace, Anna thought. What she could glean without breaking her neck was a large, marble block that had carvings writ into the stone. It was ancient and pockmarked with years of angry duels from grieving mourners and water-engraved grooves. The fireplace itself was merely a simple, Victorian-looking thing that paled in comparison to the wretched structure.

As they approached the proceedings and the crowd of people, the weather only grew in it’s morose. Anna assumed that Druella would stand with her husband and children first, as they waited by the grave sight but instead the woman went towards an older couple with shared silver canes.

“Mother,” Druella greeted them with a slight curtsey. “Father.”

“Druella.” The blonde, spindly woman embraced Druella loosely, leaving a kiss on her cheek as she pulled back. Her eyes were a dim, damp grey, very unlike the Black silver, but there was a faded beauty to her that reminded Anna of the woman holding her. Her face was heavily lined and her hair streaked silver, but she kept a thick eyeliner around her eyes and rouge on her cheeks. 

“It’s…” Druella started in a watery voice. “It’s good to see you, even if it’s in these circumstances.”

The woman’s eyes glistened warningly. Her voice cracked. “Darling-”

The man let out a low chuckle. It was a forced, tired thing that was an attempt to lighten the mood. “Come now, Regina, don’t suffocate her.”

“Don’t patronize me, Augustus.” Regina snapped back but there was no real heat in it. Augustus frowned. He was a honey-haired, tall man with deep-set eyes and a scar that went from his cheekbone to chin. The older woman sighed at the silence that ensued. “I’m sorry-”

Druella swept her mother into a hug before she could begin. “Come now, mother.”

Anna thought the woman was about to wail into Druella’s shoulder, to be frank, and her husband seemed to share that line of thought if his awkward hovering was any indication. Anna squirmed awkwardly in Druella’s arms, stuck between the two women and their stiff gowns of cloth and conduct. 

Regina was the one to pulled back first and if she wiped openly at her eyes, neither her daughter nor husband made any note of it. She gave her husband a brief nod, watching him rescind his hovering, before turning back to her daughter. “Who’s this little one, then?” She asked in a shaky voice, a tenuous smile appearing on her face. 

Druella brushed a stray curl out of Anna’s face. “Ursa Elladora Black, the first.”

“It was such a relief, after what happened with Rigel…” Druella shuddered slightly at her mother’s words but the pair didn’t pick it up. “But we’re glad to see that this one was healthy. I could swear she’s a carbon copy of Bellatrix, though.”

“Odd naming choice, though, isn’t it?” Augustus commented.

“Rosetta’s idea.” Druella smile quivered on her face.

A wet laugh spilt from Regina’s lips. “I always thought the Blacks needed more originality. Always with the same old, same old. Bellatrix is the thirteenth holder of her name, isn't she? Ah, the Rosier's are better in that regard, at least.”

“Alexander had a boy just a month ago, didn’t you hear? _Evan the Second_.” Augustus crowed, taking his wife’s arm as they drifted in the direction of the crowd. “His wife is staying home - dear, what was her name again?”

“Thelma,” Regina reminded him, in a mockery of normal pureblood chatter. Following along, Druella didn't engage as she once would have but she smiled at remarks and frowned at every other one. “From a branch of the Avery’s I think? Or mayhaps a Tripe. They have enough daughters to marry every pureblood by now, man and woman.”

Anna narrowed her metaphorical eyes - it just wouldn't do good to be suspicious so early on.

“Didn’t Isabella Travers marry one of their daughters?” Augustus wondered. “I heard from Corban Yaxley it was quite the show. They had dancing fountains and freshly enchanted draperies hanging over the hall.”

Anna breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“They got reviled by some muggles when down in  _ their _ part of London, so Isabella says,” Regina murmured. “Silly things, aren’t they? So wound up about who dates who.”

Augustus looked ready to speak again, a spark of laughter in his eyes that dampened as soon as he saw who interrupted him.  “The service is starting soon.” Cygnus slid in smoothly. Anna would have jumped out of her skin if she wasn’t being held tightly by Druella. “Do you want me to…?”

“If you would,” Druella said shortly, handing Anna over to Cygnus. She squirmed in his grip which tightened with every discreet movement but it was a relief to be away from Druella's scratchy lace collar, in truth.

“We’ll be off then,” Regina eyed Cygnus with a piercing gaze before tugging on Augustus' arm and drifting off to another pair, which looked to be eyeing the silver ornaments that hung off the sparse trees with greedy eyes. She gave Druella a significantly less poisonous stare, patting her on the arm. “I will see you there, dear.”

Anna watched the couple go, walking up the cobble-pathed path with a sombre cloud hanging around them securely. The clearing was well-worn with a grand but worn church looming on a small hill just wayside of the crowd’s gathering. 

The church once had held glass in its windows but instead, there were cracked pieces of coloured glass and shimmers were magic kept wind out of the crevices. Beside the  _ cheerful _ church, the mausoleum was pitiful against the grand building. It was made out of the same marble as the structure that the floo had been in was and equally as exquisite. There were four golden posts from what Anna could see and a large, double-doorway that flashed against the meagre sunlight.

“Take care of her, Cygnus,” Druella demanded sharply, turning on her heel. Her skirts swished behind her, dragging against the wet floor and soaking up the shreds of liquid. It made no difference to the fabric.

Looking a defeated man, in a place where weakness was preyed upon, Cygnus swallowed. “Druella… I’m sorry.”

Stopping in place, Druella turned back with mournful eyes and a morose frown lined her face. She looked twice her age as she cupped his cheek as a lover would. “I know what you’re asking, Cygnus. I can’t forgive that. Not now, not ever.”

“I’ve done everything-” He croaked out.

“I don’t want an act of forgiveness. What use are your sorries and regrets to me? It still hurts, Cygnus.” She murmured, dropping her hand as if his skin burnt and broiled. Druella held it close to her chest. "I want you to keep your promises and to heed me, next time."

“I will.”

Druella smiled then, a terrible thing to behold, full with cracks of their strained marriage and the tears that she had shed. “No, you won’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hola, mein readers! It's been far too long for my liking since I updated this story and this will be the last until new years - or, well, maybe. I never really try to guess but I do like to uphold my promises. A few days before Christmas and I'm aware this isn't a special chapter plot-wise, imo, I tried to make it a few pages longer to replace that!! 
> 
> A/N 2: And on that Christmas note, Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it!!! I hope you all have a great new years and that you stay safe!! :) Thanks for reading, drop a kudos or comment and have a good rest of your day!! You're all stars! :> :>


	10. Anna VIII

When Anna - or, to be precise,  _ Ursa _ \- turned four, she met the other side of the Black family. She had met Walburga many, unfortunate, times and on the scarce occasion the woman had been in a decent mood, Sirius had been brought over. And in the tradition of playing honourable hostess, Druella had forced Anna to make nice with the overexcited toddler. 

Anna had been happy, excited even, to meet someone new. Someone outside of the little, emotionally-stunted bubble that consisted of a sullen Cygnus, a steely Druella and their three darling daughters. Occasionally an elf would join that list but sooner or later, Bellatrix would have them fired for reasons unbeknownst to Anna. 

The lengthy list of unemployed elves grew to a sharp stop when the girl started Hogwarts. It was a startling wake-up call to Anna, who had forgotten about the age gap between them. Some eight or so years separated them.

“Where’re we going?” Anna asked, tugging on Druella’s skirts. She had  _ tried _ , dammit, to view this woman as a sort of mother figure but as governesses passed through the halls with lessons on their lips and kind gestures in their very bones, she had faded from the spot as the mother of the year. Apparently, it only applied when your children were infants.

Druella hummed. “To Grimmauld Place, to visit your cousins and Aunt Walburga.”

“Oh.” She said, trying to not letting her irritation slide onto her face. Damn, she hated that woman. “‘s Narcissa coming?”

“ _ Will  _ Narcissa be joining us?” Druella corrected her automatically, before shaking her head, blonde tussles of hair falling over her shoulder. “And no, she will be the lady of the house in my absence. Practice for when she becomes the lady of her  _ own _ house. Now,” Druella gave her a warning smile, “chin up dear.”

Anna hid her scowl beneath a cover of her hair, dark and falling in loose curls. It tumbled down her back, half of it pulled up with a ribbon the colour of pine tree leaves. It was very strange to have such dark hair.  _ Undyed too _ , she mourned her loss wordlessly. 

But, reluctantly, as they approached the floo Anna blanked her face as she was prone to - emotions ran rampant, strangely, where they had been still in her previous life - Druella took her hand in her own, soft with magical manicures and creams. Anna had yet to travel by herself, keeping close to whatever caretaker was assigned to her at all times. The sliver of protection offered by her should-be mother was all kept her from falling out of the floo as they travelled, sometimes.

“Hold on tight,” Druella murmured, loose particles of powder spilling from her fingers like emerald stars. It was beautiful, in the terrifying way the edge of a mountain ledge was terrible. Anna nodded tightly.

Her first experience with floo proved to be equal to the rest of them and, unfortunately, Anna had little experience to combat the rising displacement combined with nausea. She stumbled into the silver robes of Druella, coughing up ash. As usual, the woman gave her a sympathetic smile but offered no help beyond steadying her stance. She wobbled precariously on the birch floors, tasting fire and smoke on her tongue.  _ Do dragons feel like this? _

Recovering from hacking up her lungs, Anna took in Number Twelve with the same amount of enthusiasm as she took in travelling by floo - that was, to say, with none at all.

The room was not dim nor dank, not rotting with the relics of dynasties and imprudences of its old inhabitants. The draperies were green and ivory, the armchairs gold and grey. Above the dark, shining cabinets that held books, relics and enchanted items were tapestries spanning from the first founding member of the house to the current. Spun with wool and embroidered with careful hands, they were a monument and a warning to the guests of Number Twelve. 

Walburga Black greeted them tepidly, sweeping Druella into a half-hug and dropping a kiss on her cheek. She wore her own, dark hair in a complex bun that Anna, even in her previous life, would  _ never _ attempt and a robe of rich, emerald velvet. Her hands were adorned with rings and her wrists with gleaming metal. “Druella, dear.” She smiled like a predator. “What a pleasure it is to see you.”

Druella smiled back, a slippery thing. “Why, the pleasure is  _ all _ mine.”

“Come, boys.” Walburga turned around, her skirts swishing behind her, giving the two boys that stood behind her a sharp look. “Greet your cousin.”

Anna already knew Sirius, the dark-haired boy who looked like Orion in miniature. It was freakish to observe how he had grown to be like a tiny statue. Despite that, he held none of Orion’s calm nature and was, in Anna’s opinion, far too like his mother for his own good. Loud and brash with none of the courtesy that Walburga befitted herself with and with none of the tempered steel that Orion kept to himself. It was so simple to see how it had gotten himself blasted off the tapestry, even so young.

“Ursa!” Anna was winded by the force of his hug as Sirius was freed of the constraint of propriety. Gingerly, she patted him on the back and offered him a true but tiny smile.

Regulus stood behind his bolder, older brother with a timid air to him. He was dressed in such finery that she would have mistaken him for a doll. His eyes were grey and his hair was dark but straight and silky, unlike the rambunctious curls that his mother’s branch favoured. Slighter and smaller, in statue and spirit, Anna gave him a bright, curious look that she hoped wasn’t false upon her face.

“Hello, Sirius.” She greeted, her words wobbly on her tongue. He darted back seize Regulus’ hand, dragging him forward with a great struggle on the other parties’ side. Carefully, Anna hid a smile. “Hello, Regulus.”

“Very nice to meet you,” Regulus murmured in that stilted way that neither suited him nor his age. His words blended in such a way that if she wasn’t proficient in her own slurred talk from once ago, she wouldn’t have understood a whit of it. He shifted awkwardly where he stood, uncomfortable and unsure, and aware of his mother’s sharp eyes.

“Where’s Orion?” She asked, fiddling with the embroidery on her robes. It was snakes and crows, tripping over each other to a goal neither of them would achieve - or  _ couldn’t  _ because they were merely enchanted stitching. 

“Gone with grandfather.” Sirius huffed, displeased. He always was, when it came to either of his parents. “ _ Again _ .”

“Oh.” Anna nodded, feeling neither inclined to weep from joy or cry from abandonment. The absentee father was a role that all Blacks played well. 

A smile stretched over the boy’s face and he looked nothing like the dignified noble he had been previously, eyes alight with an enchanting fervour. Lowering his voice so that neither Regulus nor their respective parents could hear, he told her. “I found somethin’ really  _ cool _ , Ursa, wanna see?”

“You said you’d show the library, Siri.” Anna smiled sweetly, resisting the urge to rock back on her heels like a child -  _ that’s what you  _ are, something hissed inside her - but instead clasping her hands behind her back. “You promised.”

_ Well _ , Anna had reasoned before diving into the Black Manor library one day,  _ if I’m stuck here permanently then I might as well make the most of it _ .

“But it’s really cool!” He insisted eagerly, practically hopping on the spot. He  _ would  _ have been if he was raised as a normal child. “Even Reggie doesn’t know!”

The boy in question was standing next to his mother and his hands would have been twisted into her fine robes was it not for her batting hands. Regulus looked nervous and kept throwing Walburga pitiful looks while she sparred verbally with Druella. It reminded her of that shaky elf who had whined after Andromeda before Bellatrix got her hands on it.

Anna resisted a shudder.  _ I’d call her a psychopath,  _ she thought,  _ if Andromeda didn’t like her so much. Has to be a reason she stays around someone like that.  _

“They’re gonna want him to stay with  _ us _ .” She argued back. “What if he tells?”

At this, Sirius grinned victoriously, his face alight with inexorable triumph. “If he does, I’ll tell mother he was in the muggles library readin’. She’ll go mad if she finds out!”

A thought struck Anna suddenly. “If you saw him there, you were there too, right?”

“Well, yeah.” The boy gave her a carefree smile. The realisation hit him with the force of a truck, his smile darkening a shade as his lips downturned. “If I tell her I saw Reg through the windows. They’re very big, Ursy. d’you think she’ll believe me?”

“Don’t call me that.” She snapped off on reflex, disregarding his snickers. Anna pondered it for a moment. There were about sixteen other ways to lie to Walburga Black and get away with it but Sirius’ stretched five-year-old mind was likely reaching its limits. “Prob’ly.” 

“I let you call me  _ Siri _ .” He huffed arrogantly, arms crossed over his chest before glowing with determination and eagerness. Sirius snatched her hand, tugging her forward with relentless abandon. “Now, c’mon, let’s get Reggie and  _ go _ . I got up super early for this, y’know.”

She gave him a wide, false, wholesome smile before stepping on his toes. Slipping past him and towards the graciously sniping ladies and the boy who sat uncomfortably beside them, she ignored his hiss of pain and subsequent glare with the patience of another life.  _ Haha _ , she smirked internally before frowning,  _ well, that wasn’t funny at all _ .

“You’re  _ so _ mean, Ursa.” He grumbled under his breath.

“Rather me than Bellatrix.”

“Too right.”

* * *

“Shush, Reg!” Sirius hissed under his breath, fiddling with a tapestry on the second floor. The heavy fabric made it’s protestations clear when it folded back on top of the boy callously. The enchanted, embroidered people on the tapestry continued on their merry way, waving wands and swinging swords.

Anna squinted at the struggling boy. “Are you sure-?”

“Yes!” He grumbled, nails scraping down the wool. “I’m  _ sure _ .”

Finally, after what must have been half a lifetime, Sirius pulled away the tapestry to reveal a wall behind it. For all purposes, it was plain. It matched its compatriots in colour and style, reaching back into the last century and held together by woven charms. Anna frowned. She had been expecting more.

“Is that it?” Regulus voiced her thoughts succinctly. Sirius gave him a blank look before pulling out a long stick, aged and ancient, ridged and beautiful. Despite it being an object, it seemed awfully unhappy to be in Sirius' grip.

Then, Regulus made a high sound at the back of his throat. “Is that Great-Auntie Elladora’s  _ wand? _ ”

Sirius smirked smugly, looking mighty pleased with himself. “Mother won’t miss it.”

Turning on his heel with a flourish - Anna squinted, feeling an awful sense of deja-vu wash over her - the wand traced a simple pattern into the luxurious walls.  _ Up, left, half-circle horizontally- _

Where the wand went, sparking orange light was left in its wake.

To call it fire was an overstatement. It sparked and spit - jasper, honey yellow and vermillion falling to the green carpeting like fallen stars - but there was no soot or ash, and no thickly-scented smoke clogging her senses. It shimmered where it left and faded back into the plaid walls, the sun twinkling out for the final time.

When Sirius stopped, he turned to the two -  _ it was very easy _ , Anna thought,  _ to forget Regulus ever existed _ \- with a gleam in his eye. “Brilliant, right?”

Tilting her head, Anna frowned. “Is that it?”

Sirius gave her a blank look. “At least Reggie likes it.”

They both turned to the boy simultaneously, who was eyeing the end of the corridor suspiciously. He paled underneath their stares, shuffling on the spot. “I-” He grinned at Sirius, a sincerer smile than any Anna had ever worn. Something settled uneasily in her chest. “I think it’s neat.”

“See!” He puffed up, satisfied with the audience reaction. Stepping back, Anna found a wand stuck in her face and staring down a playfully offended face. “You’re just a muggle, Ursa!”

_ That’s your cue _ , whispered her mind.

On instinct, beckoned by something other, she snatched the wand from Sirius’ hands. It was hot in her palms, unwilling, rejecting her very presence but willing to tolerate her for the sake of its forebearers. The wood was solid and heavy in her hands like a metric ton of metal and there were indented groves from repeated use. 

Anna spun on her heel, her skirts not long enough to hinder her flight, and took off down the corridor with a thrown back taunt on her lips. Sirius bellowed back nameless threats as he chased after her, screeching like a siren on a bad night.

Ducking into a room, laughter sour on her tongue, she kept the wand close to her chest.

The solid footfalls of Sirius and his loud exclamations were sure to be echoing throughout the house. She pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, waiting until the sounds faded. Not _completely,_ of course \- Walburga and Druella had shoved them on the second floor per their request and locked the door behind them - but far enough away that the chance of being caught was minute.

Anna slipped out soundlessly, only to stop with a shriek of surprise caught in her throat.

“Sorry!” Regulus apologised, eyes wide and frantic. “I just, saw you duck in there-”

Anna shrugged, “s’alright.”

A stilted silence enveloped them and Anna found herself without conversation material. Sirius was easy - trade snarky remarks, play makebelieve games when he wanted and he’d bend over backwards for you. Narcissa wanted to sip tea and bask in silence and the other two sisters had each other for company. It was only the thundering of the other boy was background noise that kept them from developing entirely into an awkward calm. 

“Do…” Regulus started hesitantly, his grey eyes flickering from the ground to her visage. “Do you want to see the library?”

“ _ Yes _ .” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Off hiatus!!! I hope you all had a great holiday and that you all stayed safe!! I'm going back into lockdown - and, by extension, remote learning. I had my first classes today and I'll be honest, I just really wanted to go back to sleep. Better than actual school, though. 
> 
> A/N 2: On the subject of update times, uhm, once a week preferably. Definitely not less than that, probably more than that if I have my way but life is strange, especially now, and I don't want to go around making promises I can't keep. See y'all next time, drop a kudos and a comment!! Stay safe!!!


	11. Anna IX

“-burnt twice, the fool, then got herself drowned by a bunch of muggle priests.” Bellatrix huffed, her gaze sliding across the painting in dancing disdain. Her lips are curled into an amused sneer, making her beautiful features turn sour. “She was lucky that Lord Arcturus didn’t have her struck off the tapestry for it.”

The portrait in question - frozen in time, a forever punishment to a wild woman who relished in freedom - was a woman in red, with more blonde than brown hair and more blue than grey. Even without life given to her, she looked down upon the older girl with piercing eyes, her face thin and cunning. A storm in life as she was in death. _Bellatrix Black_ , _the twelfth of her name, beautiful and endless and dead before her time_ , Anna thought.

The sixteenth Bellatrix clicked her tongue, tapping Anna on the head with the end of her wand. There was a cruel gleam in her eye. “Don’t go getting yourself struck off the tapestry, little sister, or else you’ll be living with Uncle Marius and his…” She wrinkled her nose in disgust, “ _muggle_ wife.”

Narcissa frowned unhappily where she stood beside her sister. “Can you not, Bella?”

“She’ll learn eventually.” Bellatrix scoffed languidly, sweeping past her sister and forcing Anna to follow after her with a tight, unyielding grip on her hand. Hogwarts had only made the girl more daring, arrogance building upon an ego without any true competition to push her down. “I can see her light up every time you so much as think of that hovel down the road. I’ve been, dearie, and trust me, I would prefer a sty.” 

“She’s young,” Narcissa argued as if she had forgotten that Anna was there. “She’ll learn in time the truth of them. Even you enjoyed their company, once upon a time.”

“Yes, well, I was _three_ , Cissy.” Bellatrix huffed, twirling a stray curl with her wand. It twisted merrily around the wood. “ _She’s_ getting to be twice that. I think that’s more than enough time to understand that muggles are nothing more than filthy animals.”

Looking down at her beneath her nose with an expectant look, a sneer curling on her features, Bellatrix tilted her head in a ‘ _well_?’.

Innocently, Anna returned her gaze from beneath a curtain of dark hair, dragging a sly smile onto her face. 

It was only Narcissa’s timely intervention that stopped her from face planting on the floor. Her cheeks flushed pink as she couldn’t restrain an unwanted yelp of alarm escaping from her. The girl hauled her back to her feet, hands tight around her shoulders and shielding her, almost, with her body. If you squinted, Anna thought it was almost like watching Druella and Cygnus standoff against each other again - neither willing to yield, to admit to any fault, until another folded away their cards and swooped back off to their duties.

Bellatrix threw one last angry sneer her way before storming off down the hallway, hands hitting the delicate frames of portraits. It was only luck that there wasn’t a wand in her hand. 

“Stop riling her up, Ursa, please,” Narcissa told her quietly. “One day, I won’t be there to stop her.”

Anna frowned. “She won’t _do_ anything.”

Narcissa’s eyes darkened inconspicuously, her lips pressing into a thin line as she began to herd Anna back down the hall - in the _opposite_ way of Bellatrix. “You are not Andromeda, Ursa, Bellatrix doesn’t afford you the same protections,” she murmured.

Guided down the hall, even though Anna wasn’t stupid enough to go chasing after the furious girl but Narcissa kept sending wary glances behind them. Bellatrix hadn’t come out in a storming rage as she was prone to and was likely sulking with Andromeda’s darling company, she wanted to tell her, to soothe the worry that boiled within her, but the words stuck in her throat uncomfortably.

“Go to your room, Anna.” She said finally as they reached the beginning of their wing in the house. Druella barely had any visitors over and Cygnus was half a shut-in. It gave them almost entirely free reign over the manor.

Narcissa had shared a room with Anna for years, crammed with the _baby of the house_ as Bellatrix put it, but as the years to Hogwarts approached, Druella had split them. It had left the room feeling draftier and colder than it had in years and brought her back to her younger years, where the silence of her mind was her beloved company. If Narcissa was displeased by the decision, she made no show of it to her mother, merely bowing her head in silent submission. For some reason, it sat wrongly with Anna and left her itchy in her own skin.

Refraining from rolling her eyes at her mother-henning, Anna murmured a quiet agreement. “Will she be down for dinner?”

“Of course, don’t be silly.” Narcissa tucked a few stray hairs behind her ear, giving her a reassuring smile. “Mother won’t let anything happen. And if Father’s there - then, well, she’ll be silent the entire time.”

It was endearing to watch this older girl - still a child herself, with baby fat clouding her face and an uncomfortable amount of motor control - try and comfort her. Bellatrix wasn’t a person she was scared of; annoyed, wary of or eternally annoyed by her posturing, yes but scared? Unlikely. Reincarnation had taken the fear - _or, common sense_ , she could hear the distant, faint voice of her past life echo in her ear - from her very quickly. 

Narcissa sighed deeply, frowning again. It was wrong on her features, marring her face like an ugly scar, stretching across like a languid, lethal cat, and leaving Anna feeling twitchy and unsettled. “Mother was… annoyed today.” A revelation dawned on her face as she whirled around to face Anna, crouching in front of her. “Don’t annoy her - Bellatrix _or_ Mother, Ursa, do you understand?”

“Why would I do that, Cissa?” Anna chirped breezily. It was easy then, to play the part of the annoying younger sister. “Don’t worry. I won’t cause too much trouble.”

Resisting the urge to pat her on the cheek condescendingly - because, despite it all, Anna had always been a bit of a bitch- she spun on her heel, letting her skirts swirl behind her dramatically as she left for her own room. 

Living there for the past five years of her new life had given her insight of the place and as soon as she was walking, Anna was crawling about the hidden spaces and secret doors with reckless abandon. The long ones had featured in her and Sirius’ many adventures and the few times Regulus could be persuaded to join had been…. scintillating, to say the least.

The younger Black boy was easier to get along with. Anna chafed at the self-imposed restraints she placed on herself in the eldest’s presence, a rearing monster of annoyance surging at sporadically. But she was used to that, to irritation and anger living beneath her skin like a simmering cauldron. If Anna had _truly_ been born Ursa, without practised patience of before and the ability to taper down on a short fuse _quickly,_ the girl would’ve been a spitfire for sure.

 _Lucky them, they got me_ , she thought smugly.

 _Or not so_ , the elder, more senior and experienced part of her reminded her with brutal honesty, souring her mood, _lucky them,_ un _lucky_ _me_.

But Regulus was quiet and interested in the same books as her and _liked_ sitting in silence with nothing but the rustle of pages to fill the air. He was a child of course, prone to flights of fancy and strange obsessions, but he wasn’t unsettled in the way that Bellatrix was, or strictly ordered in the way Narcissa was, or gifted with an abundance of energy like Sirius. He was just… normal.

Or, well, as normal as a racist, would-be nazi wizard _could be_ , but Anna was taking what she could get.

“Don’t you think it’s time?” Druella’s voice echoed through the airy staircase. Anna stilled in her brief jounrey, ducking into an alcove as she caught a glimpse of blonde hair. It disappeared quickly as its owner continued down the stairs.

An annoying sound that Anna recognized immediately as she spied a few shreds of dark hair and pale skin. _Cygnus_ , she thought with a frown. “ _He_ might ask for her.” He insisted, weary as if this was a common argument. “Despite how much you think I’m a cold-hearted bastard, I can’t risk that, _won’t_ risk that, Dru-”

“Don’t call me that.” The woman snapped angrily as her heeled shoes clicked against marble floors. “She’s going to Hogwarts next year, and you don’t even have the decency to floo-call Orion? Even just a basic session or a book on the theory-”

Cygnus huffed. “Yes, ask the heir to the house, who’s bound to tell the Lord who owes the _very man_ I’m trying to avoid, a debt. Brilliant logic there, Druella, tell me-”

“What? That every time she walks into a room she’s miserable? You _promised_ me that you’d sort it out and with Rosetta-” Her breath hitched on the words but refused to break. “With my sister gone, it leaves only you’re side of the family since you refused to even _ask_ mine.”

“You know why.”

“We also both know where she gets it from.” Druella snapped. “The Blacks have been spies and secret keepers for centuries but we Rosiers don’t need sixteen different blood boiling curses to get someone's secrets.”

“Who else do I ask?” Cygnus exclaimed in equal exasperation and fury. “What, next you’ll have me running to Dumbledore or some blood traitor who thinks that because-”

“I’ll call up Marietta Goldstein.” Druella hissed, her words barely audible as they floated up the grand hall. “You might be incapable of talking to anyone unless they’re family or fucked them but that doesn’t mean I’m not, Cyg. I’m more than willing to set my pride aside to ask a half-blood for help.”

“So it does run in the family.” Cygnus spat. Anna recoiled at the rare kind of cruelty from him, trying to edge around the corner to get a peek at the newest game of ‘ _who can hurt the other the most?’_.

A stinging slap reverberated throughout the room and anger filled in the silence. “How dare you. Not everyone's like _you_ Cygnus. Not everyone has the audacity to-” She inhaled sharply as if refusing to breathe life into a terrible truth. There was steel in her voice, as cutting as a goblin-forged sword. “Find her someone or I will.”

The magic in the room flared as the doors slammed with a violent rage, the last of Druella’s storming fury dissipating with her exit. 

There was a smash, porcelain against stone, high and ringing like bells, and Cygnus left in a flurry, not unlike his wife’s. Anna steeled herself for the flinch that never came, for that old, cramped feeling of being trapped between an argument and anger and being unable to escape. For that feeling of watching in a corner as two, larger-than-life beings scrapped and fought - almost unaware of your existence bar when they tried to include you in their own clash.

It never came.

Anna frowned, out of confusion and not upset. 

There wasn’t that air of anger that sat heavily on her chest - not her own, but existing anyway- or nausea rising with every breath. No unwitting shake of her hands. No spare flinches she didn’t want to offer, but was taken from her anyway. There was fear - genuine but not heavy- but not for _them_ or herself and a fierce sense of curiosity. 

( _-na?)_

It was experiencing the whole thing anew when she hadn’t even realised it was reset.

( _Anna, I’ve been waiting for_ ages _, won’t you hurry-)_

Where had that restrained emotion gone? Had she done this?

_(I’m telling mum!)_

When had she begun to become more of someone else?

_(you know, sometimes, brother, I wonder if-)_

She didn’t want this.

( _i wonder, what it would be like to be somebody else_ -)

( _-just for a day.)_

( _go, return the damn books. the rain’s probably stopped anyway-)_

_(-so eager, why don’t you do it yourself?)_

_(very funny, i’m not_ stupid _, not like you. don’t make promises you can’t keep, anna_.)

Was she still her, that girl in the rain with books in her bag?

( _Anna? Anna?)_

Did she _want_ to be her?

( _Anna, turn that off and come play with your brother_ . _)_

If she went back right now, would she live the same? Would she want for something more, like she always had? Would that yearning that she could never satisfy, not with books or with learning, dissipate after learning the trials she was capable of living?

( _Anna, I’m not kidding. He’s been waiting all day. You_ promised _.)_

 _No_ , she wanted to say. That there wouldn’t be a secondary thought spared for this terribly askew family, for their terrible secrets and ability and inability to communicate. For their curses and infidelity and death that haunted their steps-

( _I’m going to pull the plug on that damn computer if you don’t_ -)

Her thoughts floundered in her mind - (pick one) - something deep within her soured at the thought of Anna - had it always? It couldn't be sheer luck that she was here, she wasn't Harry Potter and even if she _was_ , then maybe...

(It was a deal, a life for a life.)

Was... was Rigel, that boy who never was, was he like her?

Had he chosen-?

( _Anna!_ )

She clenched her fists at her side, exhaling deeply, feeling like the world was spinning off its axis. But there was no nausea, no gut-wrenching guilt or grief - (who are you) - and the world was brighter, saturated as if she had been living in black and white.

( _Hold on,_ _I’m coming._ )

Ursa continued on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Was that good? I tried to portray in the way I was going for but, uh, I keep feeling like I didn't capture it. This isn't just... natural, there are causes behind this, behind this reincarnation. I'm not sure I'm going to actually, y'know, straight out tell in the story because that's just spoiling the whole schtick. Make your theories, write your thoughts. That's what comments are for, isn't it?
> 
> A/N2: Y'all, online school is exhausting. Someone should have warned me smh. But yeah, I'm writing this and doing school work at the same time - literally, because I'm bored out of my mind and this is a great source of entertainment. So, once a week. :D


	12. Ursa I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: What? Didn't I already post this chapter? Yeah, I did but looking back I was seriously tired and it was seriously bad with a bunch of plot holes I couldn't fill. I re-edited it and rewrote it and changed a few details. It's still short and mainly a filler chapter, but that's what this one is supposed to be. So, yeah enjoy!

Her days as Ursa were the same as Anna’s.

Dry and boring and sprinkling in with some entertainment.

As January’s bitter winter moved in and the cold began to seep into her very bones, in the mornings Ursa was forced to go to Narcissa or (dru-) her  _ mother _ for warming charms. The days when they were absent, she entertained herself with staring out the stained glass window, waiting for something mildly entertaining to appear with a book open in her lap.

(Appearing smart was good but appearing genius? Dangerous territory, there.)

The afternoons were spent with her newly-inducted tutors. They had been Bellatrix’s once and it showed on their hard, drawn faces and steely resolve. There were two in total; one she shared with Regulus every other day. The first one, the man she saw every day and was solely  _ hers  _ and hers alone, was a thin man who looked like a gust of wind would knock him over; he had a thin nose and pinched lips that always seemed to be chapped. His pale, green eyes glared through his circular glasses and his hair was more grey than auburn, thinning rapidly upon his square head. He might have been handsome in his youth, she squinted at him behind his back, but that time was long gone.

The woman was the one she and Regulus shared. _It was very odd_ , she mused one day, t _hat they would give a scion of the House Black the same tutor_. They had spared no expense on her childhood, for the fourth daughter of the branch family, and certainly given more and many to Regulus as the second son.

Miss Moria, as her mother ( _ dru-? _ ) insisted she called her, was elegant and refined, with her dark brown hair only beginning to grey and dignified crows eyes developing around her eyes. Unlike the man, there were no creaking bones that old age brought and her steps were spry and steady. Where the man -  _ Mister Ovelg _ \- taught her rudimentary Hogwarts classes such as potions or charms, the woman educated them in politics, in etiquette, in family lineage. 

The one and only subject that neither the bright, sprightly woman nor the hunch-backed, gruff man taught was astronomy. Whether or not Regulus got the same treatment from his own father, Ursa didn’t know, but every Sunday night when the skies were clear Cygnus taught her the stars. It was the only, regular time that Cygnus spent with her and she kept them as a reluctant treasured memory.

She had, after all, always preferred father figures over mothers.

“Up there is Ursa Major.” He said, completely engrossed in the dark night sky. The man loved his stars, his pride, and could rant on for days. His silver eyes glittered with excitement even though he had covered the same topics with people thrice before her as if he was a child learning them all again. “The great she-bear. That’s who you are named after, Ursa.”

“The big one?” She asked innocently. There was two, after all.

Cygnus hummed. “Yes. Although it never sets below the horizon it does become quite low during the winter months. The Greeks used to say that it was the beautiful maiden Castillo, saved from the god's wrath by the stars and that Ursa Minor was her son, Arcas." He smiled fondly, as one would at a child. "Muggles, foolish but creative.”

“What else did the greeks say?” Ursa inquired, trying to keep the curious tone out of her voice.

He raised an eyebrow at her, looking faintly amused. “Is this a mythology lesson now?”

“‘M curious.” She peered up at the starry sky. Anna had lived in big cities, where pollution had reigned during the night. To see it so clearly was something she had only thought of, never imagine because the disappointment was too much to bear and never seen it because she had kept within the confines of the city. 

“You always are.” The corners of her fathers ( _ cyngus _ ) lips quirked. “I’ve seen the missing books from the library, even if your mother doesn’t. I wonder if your sister notices. She must. She fawns over you so much, she couldn’t miss it.”

“I don’t take too many,” Ursa scraped her blunt nails down and up her middle finger in an unconscious motion, the pain dulled by the chill. “And I always bring them back, promise.”

Her father ( _ cyg- _ ) chuckled lowly. Even in the silence of the night, it was hard to hear. He was not a laughing man, sticking to his solemn and sly nature even in fatherhood. “I know. I was like you as a child.” Cygnus’ eyes were glazed over, but there was the pale sheen of laughter over his face. “Quiet, recluse. The only time I stopped was when Alphard dragged me out, forcefully. You would like him, you and Narcissa both.”

Ursa kicked her heels, feeling in-place for once in this life. “Is he like Bella then?”

The only out-going Blacks there was; Bellatrix and Walburga, monsters of their own kind and Sirius, who was wilder than a feral dog. From what she could remember, Alphard had been Sirius’ favourite but there had never been any comment on his character.

“Bellatrix is more like my sister in that regard.” He mused but he didn't look particularly happy. “No, I’d liken him to Lucretia - but you’ve never met her, have you?” Her father sighed, rubbing his hand against his face. “Regardless, back to stargazing, girl. We have a few hours until your mother caws to be about your bedtime and I want to fit in more than two constellations this time.”

And on it went.

Her father was easy to work with as a teacher, flexible where her Olveg wasn’t and relaxed where Moria demanded perfection. If he had gone into the teaching business himself, perhaps he might’ve enjoyed life a bit more.

She studied the history of the Black family first, how they immigrated from Rome as a minor noble family, intermarried with the celts already there and moulded Britain into their personal playground. The numerous tales of various Black ancestors and their mistakes, the wars and the important intermarriages with others such as the extinct Revelli’s and the Prewetts. The nature of their magic - illusion, dark magic and the discreet sorts of rituals that made her blood sing but skin crawl. 

From her mother’s feuds, she learnt of the little history behind the Rosiers - described by Moira as “‘desperate foragers’ who made minds quiver and break and shatter upon rocks when they could’ve easily just pried it from them with a few well-placed curses”. Ursa had told her mother about most of her lessons but this one, she kept closely to herself.

Regardless of what she learnt, Ursa found herself soaking it all up like a dry sponge. Learning had been her forte and had always been her greatest pleasure but in this life, being a scholar was like giving a thirsty a man a bucket of sand and a bucket of water and being told to pick.

The library was a gold mine and she, a poor woman with a pickaxe.

***-***

“Ursa’s progressing so quickly.” Druella gushed over her, hands heavy on her shoulders. It was a warning, a silent one, not to move. Ever since that once incident with Sirius, a bowl of soup and a flamingo three weeks ago, Druella had kept her tight to her side during  _ any _ public engagement.

Walburga’s silver eyes narrowed, but a kind ( _ fake _ ) smile graced her face. “Oh, how wonderful! How very strange though…” she pretended to ponder, daggers in her stare. “No accidental magic yet, Druella?”

The grip on her shoulders tightened.

“Well…” Druella laughed, her hair flipping over her shoulder languidly. “There’s always time, isn’t there, dear?”

“Oh yes.” Walburga agreed quickly, but the seed had already been planted in the group. The other women, older and younger and pregnant and unmarried, turned to each other with unspoken, knowing stares. “Of course,  _ Dru _ .”

It would be unfair to say that Ursa was a squib. When she was in those early years -  _ Anna, confused but willing  _ \- her magic had roiled within her uncontrollably, seething and slipping. Not out of her control, not completely, but enough to choke her with her own emotions. As she aged, as Anna turned and twisted into another girl and settled, so had her magic. 

It was there but without a conduit or reason, there was simply no reason that it  _ should _ show itself.

“Well, Wally,” Druella’s eyes sparkled with the hidden knives that Ursa had seen in her sisters, in Bellatrix and Andromeda and Narcissa. “I’ve heard some nasty tales about your two boys down in that…” She shuddered. “Filthy muggle hovel.”

If the glass in Walburga’s hand could break, it would have.

“I’m sure that’s all they are.” Broke in a woman, her features pointed and pinched; silver hair wrapped around her head like a crown and dark, hollow eyes that tried to rip into your soul. Her voice was hollow of all true persuasion. “Rumours.”

At once, Walburga and Druella turned on the poor woman like cats after a mouse.

Early on, Ursa had tried to interrupt their brawling sessions. Early on, so had everybody else. As it turned out, both of them wanted to scrap it out until the very end, leaving nothing but the other’s bloody carcass behind. It was the one topic that united them - not counting blood purity.

“Of course, Gloria, dear.” Walburga smiled, sickly sweet. No false compassion or rising anger in her eyes. A predator after prey, a cat swatting a mouse, nay, a fly. An annoyance. “All those  _ rumours _ .”

Druella tittered into her gloved hand. “We all know what it’s like to fall victim to such... vicious things. Perhaps it’s best we not indulge in them ourselves.”

_ All right _ , she thought, eyeing the silver woman who stood stoically,  _ this is personal then _ .

“Ah, my dear sister-in-law says something smart. You know, Gloria, I heard such terrible things myself.” Walburga lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper. “About… Abraxas and a stable-hand-”

Druella let out a dramatic gasp, leaning over Ursa to grasp at Walburga’s arm. “Wally! How uncouth!”

Walburga tittered, flinging Druella’s hand from her velvet robes. “Oh, dear me,” She patted Gloria’s shoulder, who was standing still and wordlessly chastised. “Forgive me, Gloria, I must have gotten carried away. It’s just all those hormones, you know?”

Druella froze, her nails digging into Ursa’s shoulder painfully. 

“Another child, Walburga?” Gasped one of the women, young and naive. “Oh, how delightful!”

Another chimed in, heavy with an accent. “Do you think it will be a girl or a boy?”

“Oh, well.” Her heavy gaze cast onto Druella spitefully, their brief truce over. “The House of Black is always in a  _ dire _ need of boys, don’t you know?”


	13. Sirius I

Sirius was seven when he became a big brother twice over.

He had always been a big brother; the few memories he had without another, dark-haired, bright-eyed child clambering after were a hazy at best and even then, tainted with his mother’s large belly and his cousin’s dark, peering eyes from within his aunt’s arms. They hadn’t unnerved him, per se, but they reminded him much of his grandparents with their observant gaze. 

Looking at his littlest cousin now that same look held firm in her eyes.

“What is it?” Ursa snapped at him, impatience beginning to fray at her nerves. They had been waiting for hours and his cousin had finally run out of books to read, resulting in her sharp gaze trying to rip him apart without touching a hair on his head. “You only look like that when you’ve got something bad planned Siri.”

“It’s nothing.” He said faux cheerfully, hiding a wince as his feet hit off the leg of the chair.

Ursa pinned him with that old, penetrating gaze that he tried to avoid fervently. Sirius stared back resolutely, unwilling to bend. The brave didn’t bend to anyone in the stories that his mother read when he was younger. The details of the tale in question were a distant memory he had long since lost but he clung to the morals he had learnt; _be brave, be bold_. His mother had burnt those books when he claimed he wanted to be like the hero and thrown away the ashes, leaving him with the faded imprint of a red and gold lion roaring its defiance and a sword, glinting with righteous intent if a sword could do that.

“He’s trying not to brag. He’s already snuck in to look at the new baby, Ursa. That’s why he’s so happy.”

 _Traitor_ , he mouthed at Regulus. His brother shrugged.

Ursa pounced on the shred of information. “What’re they like?”

At this, Sirius felt him mood dim. “Dunno.” He huffed, remembering the crowd that had surrounded his mother, a hoard of pecking and preening woman in fabrics of burgundy, lilac and forest green. “Never got a good look.”

“What?” She raised an eyebrow. “Not even a peek?”

Sirius kicked the chair of her seat and ignored her burning stare. If it was cold and steely, he would worry more. He had kicked her once, lightly, and had been given hell for it. For all her huffing and puffing over Bellatrix - and wasn’t _that_ a rivalry in the making, for two sisters - the two were remarkably similar. A good thing Ursa was nicer, even if it was only by a bit.

 _“You_ try getting past Aunt Cassiopeia, Ursa, she’s worse than Bella.” He slumped against the back of the stiff chair, remembering how the crooked old woman had appeared from the shadows that the walls of Grimmauld Place cast. “Then _your_ sister showed up and kicked me out.”

Narcissa was of that age where she was neither an adult fit for _high society_ , as his mother would put it, but not young enough to play babysitter. She was certainly disappointed with that because, for all her cold-shoulder and empty words to him and Reg, she fawned over Ursa as if she was her daughter instead of her sister. He frowned at the memory of her polluting his mind.

“Which one?” Regulus piped up from where he was reading. It was another of those thick, heavy tomes the two had bonded over. That day when Ursa had come over for the first time, Sirius had spent half the day chasing a shadow, only to find the two cramped in a corner and whispering about _books_ , of all things! He pushed down the resounding disappointment that still hadn’t left and tried to tune back into the mood of the conversation.

“Narcissa,” Ursa answered for him, a twinkle of amusement in her dark eyes. “Didn’t I tell you she was there?”

“Why weren’t you there, then?” He deflected, not very well, but his cousin played along. This was why she was his favourite, for all her posturing and mood shifts. She was odd like that, Ursa. One day she would be the perfect partner-in-crime and the next she was selling him out to his witchy mother. Sirius would have better luck flipping a coin and getting a reliant result than predicting whatever mood she’d enter next.

 _Girls_ , he grumbled.

“Mother doesn’t trust me. Not after…well, everything.”

The two shared a grin.

In truth, whilst she was utterly unpredictable Ursa was an odd but welcome addition when she did oblige to be. Her and Sirius had caused many an incident before, be it accidentally or on purpose. She spent more time with Reg than she did with him, closed away in the library, pouring over large magical tomes and testing out spells with stolen wands. How they never got caught, Sirius would never know, but it had something to do with Cissa’s expert distractions.

But they had grown - reluctantly - closer as his mother’s pregnancy had progressed; Druella came over every other day to snipe and bicker under the guise of helpfulness, dragging along Ursa with her when his cousin was free. It made her surlier than usual or whatever passed for _her_ usual and often, Sirius pawned her off to Regulus and scarpered away to annoy the portraits. On the days where her mood was less stabby and much more playful, Reg would be abandoned in favour of childish pranks and sneaking around the various passages hidden in their paranoid house. 

( _The house was probably sentient,_ they had agreed, after hiding in a special, secret passageway that hadn’t been there two days prior.)

“I did see a bit of blue, like from a blanket.” He told her excitedly. Reg’s blanket had been a dark, royal blue lined with silver and though he pretended otherwise, Sirius _knew_ that his brother still slept with it. “Does that means it’s a boy?.”

His cousin rolled her eyes. “Just because it’s blue, it doesn’t mean it’s a _boy_.”

“Does too.”

“Does _not_.”

“Does _too_.” Sirius prodded her playfully. “Hey, Reg, blue is for boys, right?”

Regulus sighed heavily from where he sat, looking mightily exhausted with their antics. His brother liked playing the adult, mimicking their father’s every action when he could. It was worse when the two ganged up on him; Ursa’s strange, piercing eyes and Reg’s stubborn nature made them a formidable team that rivalled Druella and his mother when they felt like it. “‘M not helping any of you.”

“Oh, boo,” Ursa told him, eyes flicking between the two and sparking with mirth. “You _are_ no fun.”

Sirius clicked his tongue chidingly, trying to channel his inner mother. “She’s right. You were much more fun when you were helping us _smash_ those vases, Reggie, don’t you remember-” 

Regulus flushed a brilliant puce. Whilst Ursa and Sirius would never be the duo that their mothers were, they were nevertheless good, as any Black duo would be. “Don’t call me that-”

The door opened, revealing the pinched face of Aunt Cassiopeia. The woman was an ancient thing, clinging onto life with claws fashioned from poor orphan bones, in Sirius’ opinion. Her hair had long gone grey and was pulled into a tight bun that was nice and victorian-era, like the rest of her clothes. She sniffed down at them, grey cutting eyes sweeping over the trio with irritation. 

“Sit up straight, the lot of you.” Aunt Cassiopeia barked at them, looking at something behind her with a flinty look in her eye. “Walburga’s coming in and I want you all on your best behaviour.”

Sirius was mildly surprised to find she hadn’t flung a curse at them.

“The best,” Regulus promised, because he was a little weasel like that, before either one of the two could say anything. The crone gave Ursa a squinty glare before leaving with a sweep of her old robes, a smirk more likened to a snarl on her face as she went to prowl around Grimmauld Place like a ghoul. She looked like one, Sirius thought.

“Why’d you promise that for, Reg?” Sirius bemoaned when he was certain that the wicked woman couldn't hear him. She had threatened to curse him more than once and had actually cursed his Aunt Lucretia once, although that had been _good fun_ to both of them as they had instantly started throwing curses like candy, cackling all the while, whilst he and Reg had hidden under the table. Madwomen.

Regulus glared at him, but Sirius had suffered under a barrage of their cousin’s strange stares. It rendered him almost unaffected by any and all glowers. “Because they’re probably bringing the new baby down, idiot. D’you want to see them or _not_?”

“Didn’t bring Ursa down,” Sirius mumbled suddenly, feeling a hot flush creep over his cheeks. Ursa was smiling behind her hand and he was struck with inspiration. “Just kept her up there. Probably because they knew what a terror she was-”

He was answered with a pillow to the face.

“Very mature.” He grumbled into the lace of the silver frills. Nobody heard him and if they did, they didn’t deign to answer him. Sirius pulled the fancy pillow off, throwing it over in his cousin’s vague direction and hoping it hit her.

The pearls clinked merrily as it skittered across the wooden floorboards.

The door opened.

Sirius breath caught in his throat.

Aunt Druella was their thankful saviour instead of crooked Aunt Cassiopeia, pulling in to the room with nothing more than a slight frown on her face. Behind her lilac skirts was his cousin Narcissa, blonde-haired and grey-eyed with a sharp and knowing look in her gaze. The corner of her lips twitched. “Pick that up, dear.” His aunt told Ursa absently as she contemplated the state of the room. “We don’t want to make a mess for the new baby.”

“Won’t even remember it, will they?” Ursa muttered as she fixed the pillow back where it didn’t belong - on the corner of a victorian couch that looked positively _vile_ , in Sirius’ opinion. He didn’t quite like the pillow and considered it more to his mother’s tastes but it was terribly out of place in the green and grey room - it’s silvery pillows were finer and shinier than any of the other faded, out-of-date furnishings but it was mangled by an ugly purple couch that looked more like mother’s face when she was angry than any royal colour. 

“Do you want your Aunts to have a heart attack?” Druella sniffed disdainfully, more at the couch than the people in question. Although, he thought, if she had the spare contempt for his mother and various great-aunts, they would’ve gotten their fair share of it too. “Sirius, go sit with your cousin. And put that book down Regulus.”

Narcissa slid onto the end of the ugly, purple couch looking as if she had sniffed something awful beneath her nose. The couch probably smelt as bad as it looked, if the tucked away ragged ends he spied held true. If his mother found out, he suppressed a shiver, their house-elf would be beaten within an inch of their life or perhaps handed over to Bella. That might be a worse fate than any cruel concoction his mother could cook up.

Ursa, who was already on it, smiled up at her as if she was the sweet little thing she pretended to be and her expression softened. Sirius joined his cousin, miming retching to Regulus as he sat on the garish thing. 

“Right, now.” Druella clapped her hands together, silk silent against silk, and ducked out her head out of the room like a pleased mother hen who had finally gotten her chicks in line. The light chatter that could only belong to pureblood women who had converged on fresh gossip was sounding from the stairs and the gentle _clack-clack_ of shoes against the wood of Grimmauld Place as they descended was getting louder with each passing moment until-

Castillo Malfoy was a haggard woman with ashen hair twined in a long braid and also the last person Sirius expected to see. She was thin; almost gaunt-like with pinched, pale lips and ghostly green eyes. There was a permanent smile on her face that stretched from one cheek to the other, reminding Sirius of that Cheshire cat he had seen in some muggle books and making her look like a lost ghoul who had been hit with a cheering charm. He might've compared his Aunt Cassiopeia to one but he had seen the portraits of her in her youth; until she had started to turn grey and rotten, his Great Aunt was like his mother and though she was a hag, his mother was _not_ a ghoul. Castillo Malfoy made a truer use of the word than any of his family ever could.

She was not his mother’s first choice of companion, he knew, but she was apparently high enough in society to warrant her being here of all places. Very few were allowed past the tearoom of Grimmauld Place and even then, rarely survived the scathing wroth of the lady of the house.

“Do be careful, Walburga.” The Lady Malfoy said, her tone strained. “It took a lot out of-”

His mother snapped back, fierce and fiery. “I know my own body, woman. Now will you get out of my way or shall I push you down these stairs to make you?”

His Aunt Druella stood aside to allow his mother through the doorway. In Sirius’ opinion - and it was very professional because he had spent all his living memory with her as a caretaker - his mother was a bit of a hag. A strong, stubborn hag with a straight-back and at the peak of health, but a hag nonetheless.

This woman did not look like a hag. She had pallid skin and moved with a visible restriction, her face pinched not in anger but pain. In one arm, there was a woven basket that hummed with charmed chimes made from blunted glass and twirling fairy lights and in the other, she had a dark, firm walking stick. Her hair was pulled into a harried braid and her dress was loose around her waist, unlike the tight bodices she had favoured in the years passed. She looked… tired, Sirius noticed with mild concern.

 _Eh, what did it matter?_ This was his mother he was talking about, who had broken down Orion Black’s defences more than once and made him bend to her - admittedly, minor - wishes. She would be fine.

She would be fine, wouldn’t she?

His mother noticed their - or maybe just _his_ , because all the people in the room were very good at looking bored - looks. “What are you looking at me like that for? I’m not going to fall over just because of one measly little child-”

“Perhaps you should take it easy, Walburga.” Aunt Druella interrupted the tirade, placing two hands on her shoulders and leading her to a loveseat. His mother sat with a grimace. His aunt and his mother were not good friends, no matter how much time they spent together, but there was concern shining through her carefully constructed facade. 

Sirius found himself frowning and hid it promptly before his mother could latch onto it and beat the life out of him with words.

“Well?” It was Ursa who asked first, unbidden curiosity shining through her face. She was antsy, shifting with restless abandon as she leaning forward. Sirius, who was usually the unsettled one, found himself more at ease than his cousin. _The day was very odd_ , he declared to nobody but himself. “Can we see?”

His mother scowled but the numerous, anticipating gazes that landed on her could give her no reason to refute without inciting a revolt. She relented, placing the basket on her lap and peeling away the blue and silver blanket-

 _Wait a_ moment-

Did he just see his mother, Walburga Black, relent-

Sirius pinched himself to make sure he was not dreaming.

The bundle in question was silent; peering around with unfocused, blue eyes that his mother had told him would fade in time. There were faint tufts of curly, black hair on their head and it was hardly larger than the bags of sugar he had spied in the pantry, with ruddy cheeks and a mild frown on its face. It's tiny, chubby fist curled around the blanket.

“Ma-mother?” Regulus hurriedly corrected himself. Calling their mother _‘mama’_ was a habit that mother had almost beaten out of him when his brother had refused to do away with it on his own. _Almost_ , being the keyword, because Sirius had taken upon himself to remind Reg not every time until he stopped. “Is it a girl?”

Their mother smiled, almost victoriously and Sirius felt an unwitting tension leave his shoulders. _Ah_ , he thought, but not with the deep-set remorse he would have thought he had, _this is_ the _Hag of Grimmauld Place for sure_.

( _that_ \- that was a very good name. He was going to snag Ursa when he got the chance and tell her. Not Reg, though, his snitch of a brother would tell someone. Probably.)

“Meet the newest addition to the Black Family,” She said, almost sweetly. “Aries Phineas Black.”

Almost instantly, the baby began to bawl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Quick info: Ursa is six, Regulus is six, Sirius is seven, Narcissa is about to go into her first year at Hogwarts so this is around the mid-summer period. In Ursa I, Walburga would be about the third month (?) of her pregnancy when she announces it to the public so Aries would be born in... say...mid-July. 
> 
> Bellatrix and Andromeda are absent; for reasons that I felt the chapter would be too cluttered especially with the cast of... hmm.. i think it was eight characters - and that's not including the mentioned ones. If you really want an explanation; Bella doesn't care and Andy is shit-scared of Bella and as someone who she has followed her whole life, she doesn't know how to deviate from that pattern of "she said, so I do". honestly, might do a one-shot about them sometime in the future.
> 
> A/N 2: Writing isn't coming easily for me but I'm trying out a slightly different form of writing with less "-". I've been reading too much SJM, smh. I don't think you'd notice, but it's been making my writer's block easier and I just wanted to give you guys an explanation anyway. :> Please drop a kudos and comment, even something a stupid as a smiley face!!! I cherish them all!!
> 
> also btw: I've crossposted this on fanfiction.net under the same name.


	14. Ursa II

Before, as a young girl, Ursa had resented the cries and the unrelenting babbling that babies were prone to. The sound had grated on her ears and tore at her fleeting patience leading it to be a great source of amusement, even in her later years when she learned to tolerate the noisiness of toddlers, for her old family. She had made it her mission to avoid any and all children - not because she didn’t like children, but because the younger they were the so much more annoying they became.

Many things had changed about Ursa from her hair to her eyes to parts of her personality but this was not one of them.

She would have been able to sympathise with the bawling child if only it was not so  _ loud _ . His chubby face screwed up, red and flushed as if this was not the first time he had had a fit although to be quite frank, if she were Walburga’s daughter, she would be screeching too. His tiny fists were clutching the blanket of blue and silver and Walburga was staring down at him not unlike how a snake would a mouse before snapping him up.

Ursa hid her frown behind a blank expression, practised from Cygnus himself although she was not quite up to the same standard of the man, and peered down at the babe. She imagined this was what Sirius looked like as a child with the red face and awful temper. His eyes were still blue and unfocused, switching wildly between Sirius who was almost in his mother’s lap and Walburga himself.

“Get  _ back _ , Sirius,” Walburga commanded sternly because the matriarch of the house did not ask for anything. “You can see him perfectly fine from beside your cousin.”

Sirius pouted and Ursa did her best to pretend that she had not been closely following in his footsteps. Regulus, who looked tiny with the book on his lap, closed and set perfectly on his small legs, frowned. “I wanted a sister.”

_ What, is one more sibling not good enough? _ She thought, restraining the urge to roll her eyes. Walburga tensed, almost inconspicuously, before drawing herself up like a haughty bird. She gave her son a sweet, sickly smile that she had given more than one overachieving tea-goer when they overreached. “The House of Black already  _ has _ four daughters, Regulus, you would do well to remember that.”

Druella cast her a nasty look behind her back.

“Come.” Walburga beckoned her sons - Narcissa had a tight grip on the back of Ursa’s dress and by God, she was strong - and, very slowly and with great reluctance, loosened her grip on the bawling babe to allow them access. Sirius was the first to approach and treated the situation as he would treat anything, boldly and with great confidence in his abilities.

Regulus followed after him and only after Sirius had quietly introduced himself, did he follow. “Hello, Aries.” He whispered loudly, so all the room could hear. “I’m your new brother.”

The baby didn’t quieten even in the presence of his brothers and it was beginning to grate on Ursa’s nerves. If she hadn’t been born with the patience of another life, she would’ve snapped some minutes ago. The sound could only be likened to nails on a chalkboard or a poorly played violin that was enchanted to sing you to sleep and Ursa dug her nails into the soft cushion to still the chagrin bubbling within her. It was therapeutic, admittedly, but it didn’t work.

“Shouldn’t Ursa introduce herself?” Regulus asked his mother innocently.

“I’m sure she’s fine where she is.”

“I’m fine, Reg.”

It was the only time in her life and the previous that she had ever,  _ ever _ agreed with Walburga Black and it was a horrifying moment. Ursa was dying to see the baby, to see how it differed from the two brothers and how it shared features with both its parents and her own, but if she went any closer to the living air siren, she would scream. She had always been quiet, and so had Regulus and when she had met baby Sirius, he was long past the screaming and bawling phase and into the ‘crash and burn’ one. 

(He had never left it.)

(Cygnus and Walburga were very alike - same curly hair, same silver eyes, similar sharp bone structure and Bellatrix was like Cygnus and Ursa was like Bellatrix. Strangely, Sirius and Ursa also had a resemblance - not a lot but enough that they could be mistaken for siblings. It was to do with the inbreeding, probably)

But Walburga was, beneath all her facades, a spiteful, hideous woman who truly deserved the title of Hag of the Year because her face immediately turned from one of quiet disapproval to hidden elation as she shifted the bundle of baby in her arms. She furrowed her brow spitefully, as she did everything. “Are you sure, Ursa? Wouldn’t you like to see your cousin?”

Narcissa pinched the skin of her back and hissed something intelligible beneath her breath but the tone of her voice was more than enough to convey the message. Ursa hauled herself to her feet, casting her sister a dirty look before plastering on her nicest smile. “If you’d let me.”

“Of course.” Walburga enjoyed with bared teeth twisted into a mimic of a smile. Surely, her mother’s glare must be burning straight through her fine clothes and into her skin. “Come, dear.”

Every step she took was a test of her patience. Her footsteps sent jolts of wild irritation up her spine and her blood boiled with tested patience, a warning not to push her limits any further than she was. Everything had a limit, even her - in her opinion - legendary patience. Her hands clenched on air that didn’t soothe her disgruntlement and she lost the faux smile on her face as she peered down at the bundle.

Its eyes were screwed up, face red and ruddy, and she felt true anger well up in her veins before she could tap down on it and she just wanted him to  _ shut up _ . She felt herself lurch but her feet were stuck to the floor and something unknown joined the fire in her veins, joyful and consuming-

The room shuddered to a silent stop.

The baby continued to wail soundlessly.

In the doorway with a tea tray in her gnarled hands, her Great Aunt Cassiopeia began to laugh. But when she did, no sound spilt from her mouth. Rationally, being forcefully silenced would have made anybody furious but in her half-mad aunt’s case, she only laughed harder and harder until she was forced to place the silver tray to the side lest she spill it over the floor. Nobody joined in her maniacal laughter but between those aware of the events, there was an air of amusement.

There was the sharp flick of air against wood and- “Well… that was…” Her mother started, blinking rapidly as pride and victory curled around her like a dragon, draping over her figure. “Very impressive, Ursa, very good.”

“Impressive!” Aunt Cassiopeia wheezed. “Brilliant! I haven’t had a laugh like that since Cedrella got old Sirius drunk and had him dancing jigs all night!”

“We do not mention that name in this house.” Walburga snapped off automatically as she did when she felt an unworthy Black had been mentioned in her presence - or in the house. She had an uncanny ability for it. “That was… unexpected to say the least. Druella, did you-?”

“Ursa had the right idea about that, at least.” Druella pointed her wand at the still-silent baby. “He’s worse than Sirius ever was. At the very least, all my daughters are dignified, infant or otherwise.”

“It shows he has good health, at least.” Callisto Malfoy murmured. Ursa jolted having forgotten the woman was even  _ in _ the room. She was a waif of a woman and suited more to gazing out the garden window solemnly than anything pureblood life could offer. She twisted a lock of hair around her finger mournfully, as she did everything.

(Cassiopeia was still cackling, but silently. It wasn’t because of any spell, she just wasn’t making any noise beyond a few hoarse wheezes.)

Walburga preened. “Good breeding wins out after all, then, Druella?”

“Well when you only have the Black constitution to choose from, I suppose there isn’t any other option.” Druella threw over her shoulder, swooping to take the abandoned tea tray from the grizzled old woman and placing it on a side table beside her. The metal glinted in the light of the house, shimmering with polish and high-quality care.

A light hand on her shoulder pulled her back to the couch, where Narcissa sat down next to her with a soft smile on her face. There was a crease in her eyebrow and her left sleeve was wrinkled from where she had been pulling at it, Ursa noticed and gave her a returned smile if only to make her happier. 

“Well, there’s no worries about you being a squib then,” Narcissa said, sounding as if she had stopped carrying the weight of a building on her chest. She breathed. “That’s good. There was talk of sending you to Marius - or, well, Bellatrix said that so it's not entirely true-”

“But how could they be sure?” Ursa said, feeling as if the air had been punched from out of her. Had they been ready to toss her out already, without definite proof or reason? 

Narcissa hummed, absently fixing a stray piece of her hair and tucking it behind her eye. Her hands were warm. “As I stated, it was Bellatrix who said that. Bella, who’s currently… well, nevermind, and besides, do you really think that Mother would let you go?”

Well, _yes_. Wasn’t this the woman who would boot out her own daughter for marrying a muggle-born or, at least, dating one? The woman who made Ursa take a shower every time she came back from the muggle village as if to wash away the filth she might have caught from them like they were no more than animals living in a sty?

“She wouldn’t. Father might, but only because he would be forced to, Ursa.” Narcissa frowned. “I wouldn’t. Neither would Andy, even if she’s stuck to Bella like a leech more often than not.”

They weren’t stuck together  _ this _ summer. It was part of the reason that only two of the four children that Druella Rosier had been at Grimmauld Place. Bellatrix was away… somewhere… again and Andromeda had been locked inside her room since she returned from Hogwarts. A rift had formed between the sisters during the last term of Hogwarts, leaving Bellatrix harsher and more belligerent and Andromeda parched tinder that had only just found it’s spark; raging with the force of a forest fire. Her mother had asked Andromeda to come, if only to give the basic platitudes, but had been answered with the resounding slam of a magically locked door.

It was half a relief because the thought of Bellatrix stalking through the halls sent an unwelcome shiver up her spine and the thought of Andromeda lurking at the precipice like a war omen had fear making its home at her bedside. On the other hand, for two people who were so close unexpectedly because so reserved meant there had to be a more significant reason at work. 

Narcissa didn’t know, certainly, otherwise,  _ Ursa _ would know and her mother didn’t either because then the whole thing would have either been resolved or aired out like dirty laundry. For someone so talented in the arts of subtle insulting and intrigue, Druella was not a woman to end things quietly when it came to family matters.

Narcissa gave a sigh, turning to check on the squabbling adults. Their Aunt Cassiopeia had stopped trying to choke herself on laughter and instead was mumbling beneath her breath, cackling spontaneously and injecting into the current argument when she could with a gleeful, stretched smile. Callisto Malfoy was trying to blend into the wallpaper and Druella and Walburga were… well. Being Druella and Walburga.

The sun beamed through the window panes, the good summer day making itself known as the occupants of 12 Grimmauld Place moved without acknowledging it. _How many people must be outside-_ and it was then that Ursa knew that the meet-and-greet with the newest baby Black was over. Struck with sudden inspiration, she tugged on Narcissa’s sleeve, “Cissa. Can we go outside? To the park?”

The muggle village by the manor had one; it contained two rusted, rickety swings, one battered slide and a singular bench that was stained with foreign substances. The ground had been made of hard concrete and at night, if muggles had stayed the same through every universe, teens would gather there and drink their miseries away. Ursa had narrowly avoided the place ever since the village kids had branded her and her sisters “freaks.”

Kids were cruel. 

The park outside Grimmauld Place was not a large thing, as Sirius’ had regaled to her many times, but it was certainly not the barren playground she had to deal with. It had a few playsets and scattered trees that would be green and blooming at this time of year. Off to the side, there was a murky lake with sparse fish inside of it and if that was normal for a small lake, Ursa didn’t know. She wasn’t a marine biologist. 

Walburga, Ursa knew, disliked being located close to the park immensely despite her adoration for Grimmauld Place and fought with her son’s over the topic in question when it was brought up. On the days she did relent, it was only when Sirius had brought her husband ire and Orion wanted them _ out _ instead of in where the portraits could scrutinise their every move. 

“That’s not-” Narcissa faltered at her hopeful gaze, as she was hoping. “I’ll try, Ursa. I can’t promise anything more.”

Ursa nodded rapidly, scrambling away from her sister to tell the news to the Black brothers. She bounded over to the two, which wasn’t very far and only a few steps and dug her claws into Sirius’ sleeve with a vengeance, the silk fabric otherworldly in its softness in shades of blue, black and a turquoise-green, using his body weight as leverage to swing around to face them both at the same time.

Sirius screeched. “Get off me!”

“Cissa says that we can go to the park!” Ursa figured that a little white lie wouldn’t hurt anyone too much beyond Sirius’ ego, standing up onto her toes to stare directly into his eyes. Both brothers were taller than her if only by a few centimetres. “You can show me like you said you would! Didn’t you promise?”

“What’s got you so excited about a park?” His brows furrowed as he tried to pry away from her tight grip. Ursa hid her disappointment at his lack of reaction, feeling oddly off-put and tucked away her emotion into a tightly secured box. “You never were interested before.”

She placed on a mask of indifference and shrugged, impatience becoming a fine friend. “I’m bored. Are you happy or not?”

“Who’s taking us, then? Mother won’t let us-”

“Aunt Cassiopeia offered to chaperone us. I believe she’s getting tired of irritating Aunt Walburga and Mother. Aunt Walburga will cast a muggle-repellant spell to keep you three from being noticed by _them_.” Narcissa’s smooth, indulgent voice swept over them like a balm and she eyed all of them suspiciously. “Go wait quietly.”

“Told you so,” Ursa muttered to Sirius as they shuffled out. There was no need for coats so far into the summer months. If it did perchance get chilly then every decent witch or wizard knew how to cast a warming charm, or so Narcissa claimed. It was more likely that Cassiopeia would shunt them all off into the lake and let them drown than cast any spells.

Her Great-Aunt Cassiopeia had remained unmarried, had no children and was more of a hag than Walburga which made her a hot topic of discussion during tea parties. She had come over more than thrice during Ursa’s life and all three visits, she hadn’t seen hide nor hair and heard only shrieks, cackles and bangs of askew spells as Bellatrix learnt all she could from the highly-trained, highly-respected - in the Black family, at least, and everybody else had a healthy fear of her - highly dangerous witch. 

They bundled out onto the bright streets with Aunt Cassiopeia sniffing disdainfully at every rock, tree and gate and Narcissa keeping a keen eye on the trio. Sirius looked brighter outside, his mood unencumbered by the houses’ atmosphere and the overbearing nature of Walburga. Regulus was the opposite, eyeing every muggle object on the street as if it would jump out and bite him which Ursa and Sirius took great pleasure in taunting him on. 

“‘S not my fault.” He huffed, pouting. “How am I supposed to know it’s just a light?”

Which a shove at Narcissa, which pushed Ursa into Regulus which pushed him into Sirius, Aunt Cassiopeia gave them all a nasty stare - although when her gaze landed on Ursa, she looked torn between laughing or spitting vitriol - and swept away with a flash of her cloak and the click-clack of her Victorian-era boots, her ancient skirts swishing behind her in a show of grandeur.

The park was as grand as Sirius made it out to be; not very. On the various playsets, there were a few other children tossing themselves around as a few adults hung around the treeline anxiously, watching and waiting in case one of them broke their neck. One of them must have been a babysitter because there were too many different children and not enough parents.

“C’mon, let me show you this really cool thing!” Sirius grabbed her hand and suddenly, it was Ursa who was being pulled along enthusiastically, tripping over her own feet to keep up with him. “If someone pushes it, it spins and spins! I bet we can get Reg to push it. Reg hates going on it because it makes him dizzy but I think it needs to suck it up.”

“That’s mean!” Ursa spouted off on instinct as she connected the dots quickly. A round-a-bout being one of Sirius’ favourite things was not at all surprising for a boy so full of heedless energy and never-ending courage. A whirlwind of speed and adrenaline that everybody else around him hated with a passion suited him perfectly. She wondered if he had been thrown off yet. It was an awfully Sirius’ thing to do.

“Well, come on!”

The roundabout was something she hadn’t seen since she was… twelve? Maybe. Being somewhat of a recluse in her teenage years hadn’t helped in the slightest but she could still remember begging her dad to  _ push faster _ as she swung around wildly before stumbling off to be sick in a bush. If she thought hard enough - and  _ that gave _ her a migraine, so she stopped immediately - she might be able to taste the rancid acid burn at her throat. 

This one was red and whilst there was rust clumped around its joints, it was sprightly and springy and well into its long youth. Sirius beckoned her forward and sat on one of the small, wooden seats that reminded her of the tables used in American high schools. He leaned over the bar, a wide grin on his face as he pats the space next to him eagerly and without abandon, shifting to allow room for Ursa to sit down on. He looked nothing like the pureblood heir he should be in the moment, only another child wanting to play.

It wasn’t that Sirius wasn’t wild; it was there was a certain elegance to all purebloods that was almost literally beaten into them at childhood, at least in the Black brothers' case because Walburga was a taskmaster who demanded nothing short of perfection. There was a poise that they all carried regardless of their regalia or alias and it was rarely lost even in anger or defeat. For once, instead of looking like the miniature version of Walburga - whether he admitted it or not, there was a resemblance between the two that was  _ uncanny _ , from the eyes to the hair to the high cheekbones - he looked… normal.

How very strange that her old normal was her new weird. Ursa hadn’t taken note of when Narcissa’s elegant grace and Regulus’ forced perfect punctuation had become normal and unnoted, or when the smooth actions of Druella had become unnoticeable or the cadence of their voices had melded with hers. Had her own bearing changed accordingly? 

Sirius narrowed his eyes. “What? Are you scared?”

Shaking herself out of her stupor of realisation, she gave him a grin that she hoped wasn’t forced. “I bet you’ll be sick first.”

He gave a bark of laughter. “Never! Hey, Reg-”

“On it.” Came the resigned sigh of the youngest of them.

Guilt welled up at forcing the younger Black to push them instead of letting him play. Sirius must have noticed or she was getting worse at masking her emotions. “Don’t worry about him.” He nudged her shoulder. “He can’t stand it, at all. Hates it more than Mother hates the park. He’s fine, aren’t you Reggie?”

“Please don’t make me think about getting on.”

Sirius cackled and Ursa gave him a reassuring smile, wrapping her arms around the bars. How very strange to be back here, after all these years. 

It started as it ended; with Sirius cackling in the background as one of the trio miserable.

Ursa stumbled away on wobbly legs, feeling bile bubbling merrily in her stomach and waiting for the last call from her brain to haul it all up. She’s lucky she didn’t take the offer of a large breakfast and instead stuck to picking at the food; although, half of it was nervousness at an  _ Aries Black _ even existing. 

“Are you okay?” Reg asked her because he was a snitch, but he was a kind snitch. 

Ursa managed a weak smile that felt pathetic on her face but Regulus accepted it anyway because he was a  _ kind snitch _ . “I’ll be fine. I’m just gonna…”

She gestured to the bench that sat, lonely, under the shade of a tree. The tree was tall and green as was typical of a tree; its leaves glistened cheerfully under the sun and its bark was strong and sturdy, unyielding. Regulus looked back at Sirius and then squinted suspiciously at her, the picture of a fretting mother hen. “If you’re sure…”

“I am.” She said weakly. The bench seemed like the answer to all her problems. 

“Alright, then.” He conceded finally and backed off but not without a final. “Just be careful.”

She all but threw herself upon the green bench. Ursa straightened out her skirts - Aunt Cassiopeia didn’t care, but if Narcissa were lurking about somewhere instead of picking flowers as she liked to do, then Ursa would have a kinder fate drowning herself in the lake - and ran a hand through her windswept hair. Today, her mother had pinned it in an awkward up-do that had come lose some minutes early and fell onto her shoulder in a tiny braid.

She had always loved braiding her hair. Having hair fall to your waist was a nuisance but one large benefit of having long hair in her old life had been spending ages and ages just running through the motions. This time, Ursa had contemplated keeping her hair short because she had always wondered how she would look, no matter how much she protested, but Druella would have a fit. Narcissa might, albeit grudgingly, accept it over time but her mother would rip her own blonde hair out in rage.

Then Walburga would mock the living life out of her.

Well, she decided suddenly, that’s just not an option. Her hair was long enough and quite frankly, if she did want it longer, magic did half the cleaning. So, perhaps just for her childhood-

“You look lonely.” Came a voice from beside her. “Are you alright?”

It was a girl who looked roughly her own age. She was a muggle, Ursa noticed, with her blonde hair in two rugged braids and wide, green eyes. The muggle girl wore a yellow sundress with a pair of sunglasses sitting on her head, abandoned. It was a stark contrast to her own grimmer and darker demeanour; dark eyes, dark hair, dark dress that looked two decades older.

(What? According to Walburga and Druella, who were high-society witches, this was what high-society was into. The style was pretty and elegant but personally, Ursa preferred trousers and t-shirts. Not that  _ that _ was happening anytime soon.)

She gave the girl a blank look - smiles were reserved for family. “I’m fine. Why?”

“I haven’t seen you around before. I know almost everyone around here.” The girl smiled cheerfully, an odd glint in her eyes, hands clasped in front of her. “What’s your name? I’ll tell you mine; Maia Thomas! Nice to meet you!”

Ursa eyed the outstretched hand, which was surely sticky if her past experience with children meant anything. She returned it. “Ursa Black.”

For such a tiny girl, the handshake was awfully tight.

“Oh!” She said, her voice squeaking. “Do you know Walburga Black? I met her here once but she didn’t seem very happy. Is she coming back? She wasn’t very nice but not everyone can be nice when they’re sad, you know-”

“Uhm, not for a while.” Ursa ripped her hand out of the girl’s grip, wiping down the sweat and stickiness on her skirts and praying to whatever gods there was, that Narcissa wasn’t near. “She just had my cousin, Aries.”

“Aries?”

“It’s tradition to be named after stars or have names based on them.” She hummed. “My father’s called Cygnus and my cousins are called Sirius and Regulus. The only person in my family  _ not  _ named after a star is my mother, but she doesn’t count because she’s a Rosier.” Ursa stopped for a moment, recounting her family members. “And my older sister, Narcissa.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not all of us are named after stars, just most. I think I’m the first of my name, though, unless you count the Ursula we had.” Ursa retraced her known family history, remembering Ursula Flint. “But she wasn’t even a Black.”

Maia nodded, her smile strained on her face. She was good at hiding it but Ursa had been raised by liars and - probably - cheats, in this life. You learn things with a dysfunctional family like that. “So you have a sister?”

“Three, all older.” She told the girl, purposely omitting the late Rigel. It would be better to not mention him, at all. To everyone in her family, bar perhaps Sirius or Regulus, she didn't know about the boy before her. “Bellatrix, Andromeda and Narcissa. But Bella and Andy are fighting so they aren’t here because otherwise, they’d light the house on fire and even Uncle wouldn’t get them out of Az-  _ prison _ .”

Ursa cursed herself for messing up so early in the game.

Maia made a soft ‘oh’. “My family pales in comparison, I guess. I only have my brother and he’s still a baby, like, newborn.”

“Huh, like Aries.” 

“I guess.” Maia shrugged. “All my other family live away from here, except my parents and my grandma but that’s because she has a bad back.”

Ursa had forgotten that normal ailments, like arthritis and old age, affected people so much. Aunt Cassiopeia was half-decayed and she was still hopping around like a decrepit old doxy. Any illness caused by age was advanced age, for example, being one hundred and fifty because, after a century and a half, potions started to lose their effect and thus the elderly were forced to bear the wear and tear until a new potion came along or they kicked it.

She opened her mouth to say something but then- “Hey, Ursa!” Sirius hollered, waving wildly, a grand grin on his face. He had clambered over the bar of the roundabout, hair batting his face in the wind and sticking to his mouth. “Reg wants to play on the swings! Wanna do it?!”

She didn’t give the blonde girl on the bench must consideration and cupped hands around her mouth. “I’ll be over in the minute!”

Sounds of victory echoed over the park.

“It’s alright, you can go,” Maia said, although Ursa was only turning to say goodbye and not apologise. Had she gotten meaner than she presumed? “Will I see you again?”

Ursa thought of Walburga’s great distaste, Druella’s fussing and the timid nature of Callisto Malfoy that couldn’t persuade a teddy bear to be kind and shook her head. Quite frankly, the girl was creepy and odd, with her strange overbearing kindness and the glint in her eye that had Ursa on the backfoot. The strict guardians were only an excuse, now that she thought about it.

“Probably not,” Ursa told her, running off in the vague direction of Sirius’ yelling and Regulus’ protesting against his relentless teasing. She let a small smile slide on her face as she bounded into the conversation.

Maia placed down her waving hand with downcast eyes, fiddling with the buttons on her dress absently as the dark-haired girl ran to play. “See you in a few years, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I don't have an excuse for how late this chapter was but if you want one, have one. School is a massive btich and I can't think straight for more than three days in a row. Apologies for any changes in style in this chapter, it was a long haul and I did parts of it v late at night. If you notice any changes in previous chapters it's because I'm editing them and changing parts of it to suit the story e.g taking out unnecessary side stories.   
> A/N2: A direct continuation from where the last chapter left off!! I'm thinking of Narcissa's pov for the next chapter. I don't think for this part that Reg will get any pov chapters but sirius definitely will. Mainly because so far reg is kinda nice and non-blackish where ursa, narcissa and sirius are a tad more cynical. The thing with bella and andy will have further consqeunces!! haha. I've started fiddling with a one-shot story about Bellatrix and her story so far because I find her quite interesting tbh. ANyway, drop a kudos and a comment and I'll see you folks, next chapter!! <3


	15. Narcissa III

Narcissa watched her reflection in the mirror, frowning as she fixed her hair back into a hairstyle of proper refinement. It had been years since she had placed it in anything that resembled her youngest sister who was fiddling with her own dark hair. Out of her four siblings, only two of them inherited the stereotypical black-brown hair that seemed to be a common trait amongst their family members. Andy had their grandmother’s hair, more brown than black, and Narcissa had their mothers brilliant blonde.

“Will you be back for Yule, Cissa?” Ursa asked her, tying off her braid with one of her numerous ribbons. Soon, Mother would take her aside and educate her in the proper styles of fashion and she’d begin to look less like a muggle girl who spent her days playing in the muck. Or maybe she’d do it herself.

But her little sister wasn’t there yet. “Of course I will.” She swept in behind Ursa.“It’ll be your first rites, won’t it?”

“You’ll be there, Cissy, won’t you? Sirius says that his mother says that Mother is worried Bella won’t be there and if Bella doesn’t go then-”

Narcissa tapped the top of her head with a finger, watching as her sister blinked. “Bella does what she wants but, even if she doesn’t go, little sister, Andromeda wouldn’t miss the rites. No good pureblood would.”

“Then why wouldn’t she be there?”

She pinched her lips, trying to decide whether or not to tell. Narcissa told most things to Ursa; Bellatrix and Andromeda had each other, Regulus and Sirius had each other and so it went in the pattern that Ursa and Narcissa were each other’s confidants too. This, however, wasn’t either of their business and only her own speculation. She thought about it for a moment before deciding. 

“I overheard Bellatrix talking about the Lestranges’.”

“And?” Ursa frowned. “What does that have to do with the rites?”

For a moment, an odd shrewdness flickered in her sister’s eyes. It was gone the following second and out of Narcissa's mind by the next. Her sister was sharp; perhaps not as edged as Bellatrix - although very few were - but much more cutting than either Andy or Narcissa. Narcissa placed her hands on her sister’s chair, leaning over so that her blonde curls brushed against her sisters. “Marriage.”

“Oh.”

Narcissa chewed on the inside of her lip. Every pureblood, woman or man, understood the need for betrothals. They solved blood feuds and kept the more influential and bloodthirster families from hunting each other to extinction. In recent times, to an unobserving eye, there wasn’t a need for them anymore. But this was peacetime where there was no dark lord or loud squabbling purebloods, no muggle hunts and no clear enemy that would cause any sort of warfare. 

Bellatrix would have known this as the eldest Black of their generation and it was likely that Sirius would know, too, in the impending future. The reason that Narcissa knew was because of her expected betrothal to-

“Do I have a betrothal, Cissa?”

Ah. She should’ve expected this. The easiest course of action was to deflect until their mother arrived but… what was the harm?

“Not… officially.” She said delicately. “I think that the Crouches have a son your age, maybe the Bones’ if they shape up. Oh, I heard the Longbottoms have a son with Selwyn blood. Or, if Uncle Orion asks, Sirius.”

“But…” Ursa wrinkled her nose. “He’s my _cousin_.”

Narcissa shrugged. “Walburga was Uncle Orion’s second cousin. I think that they’d rather have a second cousin marriage than a first…. but there doesn’t seem to be any other girls of marriageable age, I think.”

“You _think_?”

“None who are suitable.”

Until her debut at fifteen, Narcissa wasn’t _officially_ on knowledgable terms about the pureblood world. Of course, those with fixed betrothals met their new in-laws as children through playdates and the like but that was uncommon unless there was a power struggle that needed to be resolved. Now, the board had changed and her mother had been teaching her the bare bones that she would need to know to survive, never mind thrive.

It would go smooth sailing when she turned fifteen and everything fell into place; Bellatrix would marry the Lestranges and cement the alliance with them permanently when she had a child or two. Andy would inherit the mantle of Lady Rosier from their mother and probably marry their second cousin, Evan, to unite the claims. There was a certain age between them that had their mother grating her teeth but it was better that there be no contenders to the title than avoiding marrying someone a few years younger because you were _uncomfortable_.

And then, when she came of age, Narcissa would marry to keep the bargain struck between her father and the Lord Malfoy and bring him and his vassal houses into the fold-

“But what if I don’t want to, Cissa?” Her dark eyes blinked up. “Why can’t I marry who I want?”

She avoided hurtling forward last second by trained reflexes as a memory came to the forefront of her mind, burrowing past her defences and shrieking through her skull-

_“-stand! Why can’t I marry who I want? Why does everything-”_

_“-don’t you like the Lestrange boy?”_

_“-like Rod but I don’t want to marry him! Why can’t Andy do it?”_

_“ ~~What~~?” _

_“-she’s the second daughter. It’d be an insult to such a carefully cultivated-”_

_“I don’t care if it’s an-”_

Narcissa took a deep breath and felt the overwhelmed occlumency walls in her mind heave almost painfully before crushing the worm that had sneaked by and straight into a trap of its own making. If it had been a real worm, it would have squished in a way that sent her stomach churning but when her reflection in the mirror relaxed, her face a bland stare of neutrality, it swooped with delighted surprise instead. It worked, she realised, it _worked_.

“Cissy?”

And like that, the crushing delight that had her all but floating was trapped away by the same thing that brought it to fruition. Crushed and squashed into a box and sorted carefully into the numerous, shaky rows of shelves that held her (own) memories. 

“Yes?”

Dark eyes narrowed on her reflection. “What’s wrong?”

Narcissa shook her head with a light smile, brushing off her sister with ease. “Nothing. I should check on mother, she should be getting here soon-”

Just as she turned away from her sister and her confused eyes, her mother bustled in with none of the grace she had steadily hammered into Narcissa. Had she been like this when Bella went? Narcissa tried to recall. The memories from then were a blur of excitement and enthusiasm and the vague red of the train as it left the station with the expectation that one day, _she_ would be boarding that train.

One day, when Narcissa was feeling and bold and Bellatrix was still riding the high of the Yule rites and bragging rights both, Narcissa had asked her what it was like. For once, her sharp sister had deigned to answer her. “Full of mudbloods and blood traitors, as expected,” Bella had begun, which had dampened her vigour a bit. “But once you get past the filth… well…”

And for the first time in her admittedly short life, Narcissa had caught her sister speechless. Bellatrix had quickly covered her trail and began boasting of the grandeurs of Slytherin and how, when _she_ was older, she was going to purge the school from filth and make it habitable for a proper purebloods education. But her sister was prone to going on rants ever since…well, that day when they had heard the dreaded whisper _Dark Lord_ and _recruiting_ in the same breath.

As if a would-be Dark Lord cared about a child’s ramblings, if there was going to _be_ one.

“Are you both ready?” Their mother tugged absently on Ursa’s braid as she passed. Unhappy with the callous muggle style but unwilling and unable to do much beyond expressing her displeasure. They weren’t running late - and besides, a witch of House Black is never late, everybody else is merely early - but it would be in poor form and to arrive with the bloodtraitors and half-bloods and their ilk. Worst of all to arrive at the same time as some muggle-born and their pitiful muggle parents.

She hoisted the strap of the carry-on bag over her shoulder as her trunk lifted into the air, surely the work of some inconspicuous house-elf. Their mother wouldn’t dare submit herself to ‘menial work’. “Yes, mother.”

“Good.” Narcissa watched with faint amusement as Ursa scowled at their mother who was fussing over the last details of her dress. “Your sisters are waiting with your father, who has _deigned_ to join us this year. We shall join them when I have-”

Her sister hissed not unlike a cat as a jewelled clip was shoved into her head of curls, keeping flighty bits of hair away from her eyes without assistance. Their mother smiled triumphantly. “-finished with your sister. Come along now.”

They followed after their mother like chicks falling in line, although Ursa huffed and puffed about the clip in her hair, and arrived at the sitting room in a timely fashion. Their father was lounging on the armchair placed strategically in the centre of the room with a hat waiting in his lap whilst her two sisters shifted anxiously beside each other. Narcissa frowned; usually, they gossiped and giggled and planned vengeance on whomever (or _whatever_ , in one particular case) displeased them the previous year. Silence was not something she was accustomed to when involving the duo.

“Five minutes and six seconds.” Said their father dryly, skillfully ignoring the unrelenting glare that he received from their mother. “I suppose you win, then.”

Her mother sniffed. “Of course. Do you expect anything else?”

He merely raised an eyebrow.

A drawn-out silence was broken by the clattering of statues that yelped soundlessly - statues, unlike paintings, could not speak. Their paint, however, could move - and standing beside where they had previously stood was Ursa, who looked blankly down at them. “Oops.”

The silence halted as her mother grabbed her sister's arm. “Troublesome girl.” She muttered and making straight for the fireplace. Narcissa followed behind dutifully, feeling rather grateful. They would have continued on their staring contest until they were forced to arrive late and claim everybody else was early and whilst it was fun to flaunt their prestige, it was still rather embarrassing.

The flames sparkled a vibrant green, dancing with care nor notion of the argument that had been narrowly avoided. A pinch of green powder was placed in her hand a little too harshly, but her mother was too enraptured in her stewing anger to notice. Narcissa refused to sigh but she wished, if only for a moment, that their parents would act properly even in face of their unspoken disputes. Ursa gave her a little wave as she disappeared in a whirl of green and soot.

As she stepped into the fireplace, she could see her sisters staring back at her yet before she could note anything beyond their displeasure lining their faces, the green flames clambered up her skirt and carried her away.

* * *

Narcissa stepped out to a platform of red and smoke and empty space. There were few people there beyond the typical purebloods, those _worthy_ of attending school as Bella would say. Quite honestly, Narcissa didn't care about those deemed unfit and impure but she would rather appreciate it if they stayed far, far away from her and hers. Ursa took her hand and although her mother gave her a stern look for it, she didn't let go.

It hit her that Narcissa was about to leave her little sister, the one who she found comfort in the most and the one who - she _hoped_ \- found an equal amount of comfort in her. The silence in a world that was louder than it had any right to be. If she was a lesser witch, she might have cried a bit. If Ursa was a lesser witch, she might have too. Alas, it was not to be.

“You’ll write to me lots, won’t you, Cissy?” Ursa tugged on her sleeve, dark eyes wide and innocent. “And when you come home at Yule, we’ll do the rites together?”

She could remember her own experience at her first rites; utterly exhilarating and terrifying in the same breath. How one wrong move could spell disaster, how it almost had and how the air seemed to hold its breath as the world changed course, heading for something brighter and warmer and new. “Of course,” Narcissa promised.

“And you’ll not tell Bella that it was me who set her alarm three hours early?”

“Wha- of course.” 

“And you’ll tell me all about Slytherin?”

“Obviously.”

“And-”

“ _Ursa_.” She hesitated for a moment. Bellatrix had just come through the green flames and that meant that she was running out of time before the customary goodbyes were exchanged and she was sent on her way, to claim a good seat and flaunt her powerbase before anybody else could. Hurriedly, Narcissa hugged Ursa tightly. “I won’t forget about you. And if you’re really that worried, I’ll write to you twice a day. Thrice, maybe.”

She could feel her sister stiffen in her arms and then- “If you send me any more than one, I’ll send you back ashes. That’s too much to read.”

Narcissa smiled and pulled back, eventually as the signature _fwoosh_ of the Floo sounded for a third and final time. She could see Bellatrix kissing their mother’s cheeks, albeit reluctantly, and readied herself to say goodbye. She felt sick with anticipation but a combination of minor occlumency and her mothers chiding words stilled her stomach and calmed the roiling waves of impatience. When Narcissa took a step forward to say goodbye to her father, Ursa’s hand fell off with it and she felt relieved when she didn't latch back on.

Her father gave her an incline of his head, his hand resting on her shoulder. “Be safe.”

“I will.” On what to be safe about went unspoken, but she saw the glimmer of a warning in his silver eyes. _Keep your secrets safe,_ he said without words, _keep your mind safe_.

Her father was complicated like that; outwardly cold, stern and callous. She had heard rumours that he hadn’t always been like that and once, had been a kinder and more flexible man. What had turned him? Had it been Rigel, who seemed to be a shadow forgotten and cast aside, or had it been the infidelities her mother shouted about that he had inflicted? (She wasn’t sure what they were, per se, but they mustn’t have been nice.)

Her mother swooped in, pressing a kiss to the temple of her head. Her eyes were barely watery, but she made a show of wiping away invisible tears anyway. “Be good, dear.” She said, fixing back her hair. “Write to Ursa. She’ll be lonely without you.”

Lonely? Maybe, there were those muggles down the road she liked to talk to, even if Narcissa didn’t approve. She was still a girl, after all. Bored? Even more so. And boredom played friends with nobody, least of all her sister. 

But instead of saying those things, because it wouldn’t be proper, and because perhaps Narcissa wanted to see what mischief her sister would get up to, she settled for nodding. “Of course, mother.”

Her mother patted her on the shoulder, the opposite one her father had, and gave her a proud smile. Warm bubbled joyfully in her stomach, flooding her system and she turned for the train, following the fading forms of her sisters. “I will be expected a letter about your sorting, Narcissa, do you understand?”

Truthfully, Narcissa could barely hear her mother as she approached the train, red and gleaming like a beacon in the night. “Of course, mother!” She threw over her shoulder, feeling a bit impolite. It was ungraceful for a lady of House Black to act in such a manner but when the start of her life stood in front of her, she thought that mother would let away with one infraction.

As she stood, the day still early and the birds chirping outside the station, Narcissa smiled and stepped onto the Hogwarts Express with her trunk following behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N 1: Uhm, yeah, hey guys. its been a month, almost, hasn't it? i guess that's my fault. sorry. i can't do more than apologise, tbh. but uh, yeah, next chapter.
> 
> A/N 2: i want to explain the whole druella being the lady rosier. Druella's father is the current lord rosier and he has two daughters - druella and rosetta (rip). Druella's dad also has a brother, who has a son - and that's Evan. Because druella's dad is lord rosier, he can dictate who the inheritance goes to and since dru married the equivalent of the second son who would inherit nothing, even though it was a prestigious family, she can give one of her daughters her own titles. Her father (lord rosier) wants his daughter to be lady rosier and not his nephew. Since bella is gonna enter into a paternal marriage, Andromeda would be next in line for inheritance. She could either a) take the name black-rosier or b) drop the black name altogether and become simply andromeda rosier. andromeda marrying evan would prevent usurption from an outside force. also, Narcissa is entering into a paternal marriage so the line of inheritance - as wanted by the lord - goes as follows: lord rosier > druella > Andromeda > ursa > lord rosier's brother > evan rosier. 
> 
> idk if this is how it would work in real life, or if I've just read too much game of thrones, but I'm assuming that it would work similarly to this. if not, I'll change it, because the marriage stuff isn't set in stone (bella is marrying rodulphus, she's betrothed and there's an agreement between the blacks - aka cygnus and druella - and the malfoys). Can anybody guess if ursa will marry or not?? it might seem like I'm setting up a cousin thing but the whole thing about cousin marriage is icky and just... no. reg and sirius are like brothers to ursa and although I've read GOT, they ain't targaryens. yikes.
> 
> stay safe!!! :)


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